People News
We note with much appreciation for his many years of federal service, first with the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity and then with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the retirement of Gordon Fisher. To those working in the field of poverty measurement, Gordon is widely known and highly respected for his indefatigable efforts to chronicle the history of poverty measures in the United States, including but not limited to the work of Mollie Orshansky. For his articles in this field, Gordon has pursued not only published documents, but also unpublished memoranda and other documents in order to provide a complete history. See the Census Bureau’s poverty/experimental measures web site, where many of Gordon’s papers reside http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/publications/working.html. We wish Gordon all the best in his retirement pursuits.
We express our deep appreciation to James Lynch for his leadership of the Bureau of Justice Statistics over the past two-and-a-half years. Jim will be assuming the post of professor and chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland, effective January 1, 2013. He was previously distinguished professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, City University of New York, and professor in the Department of Justice, Law, and Society at American University, chairing that department for 2 years. He served as vice president of the American Society of Criminology, as a member of the Committee on Law and Justice Statistics of the American Statistical Association, and as a member of the CNSTAT panel that produced the 2009 report, Ensuring the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Justice Statistics. His research interests include crime statistics, victimization surveys, victimization risk, and the role of sanctions in social control. At BJS, he pursued a number of initiatives, including to improve the measurement of rape and sexual assault in household surveys and to take advantage of increasingly sophisticated computerized crime databases for statistical purposes. He has a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.
We take this opportunity to express our deep appreciation to CNSTAT’s core sponsor agencies, which, year after year, contribute funding to enable CNSTAT to maintain a core staff, continue such activities as this newsletter, our public seminars, and the periodic updating of Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency (which will be reissued in a 5th edition early in 2013), and undertake workshops that address such system-wide issues as facilitating innovation in the federal statistical system and the future of federal household surveys. We note our thanks in the “People News” section because it is people at each agency—including program staff who see the value of CNSTAT and contract staff who take the necessary steps to move paperwork through their systems—who make our core program possible. We particularly thank Cheryl Eavey, program director for Methodology, Measurement, and Statistics at NSF, who processes interagency agreements from many agencies and combines the funds into a grant to CNSTAT, thereby saving considerable paperwork for both the agencies and CNSTAT. This year’s core contributors are:
Agency for Healthcare Quality and Analysis, DHHS
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, DHHS
Bureau of Economic Analysis, Commerce
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Justice
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Labor
Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Transportation
Citizenship and Immigration Services, Research Evaluation Division, DHS
Economic Research Service, USDA
Energy Information Administration, Energy
Methodology, Measurement, and Statistics Program, NSF
National Agricultural Statistics Service, USDA
National Center for Education Statistics, Education
National Center for Health Statistics, DHHS
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, NSF
National Institute on Aging, DHHS
Office of Immigration Statistics, DHS
Office of Policy Development and Research, HUD
Office of Research and Analysis, NEA
Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, SSA
Statistics of Income Division, IRS, Treasury
Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, DoD
U.S. Census Bureau, Commerce
Report News
Medical Care Economic Risk—Measuring Financial Vulnerability from Spending on Medical Care, the final report of a CNSTAT panel chaired by Michael O’Grady (West Health Policy Center) for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was released in prepublication form on September 27, 2012. It is available in PDF; printed copies will be available shortly.
Report in Brief—
Rapidly growing medical care costs relative to income are increasingly competing for resources to cover other basic needs, particularly for middle- and low-income families. The recently implemented Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which accounts for out-of-pocket medical care costs in the calculation of disposable income, showed that if it were not for the costs of premiums and other medical expenses not covered by health insurance, 10 million fewer people would have fallen under the poverty line in 2010. This report develops a framework for an additional measure that would estimate the proportion of families and children who are at risk of incurring high out-of-pocket medical care expenses, including health insurance premiums, in relation to their resources. As new policies are implemented that seek to expand and improve health insurance coverage and to protect against the high costs of care relative to income, a measure of medical care economic risk will be particularly important to inform policy. The 1995 CNSTAT report on Measuring Poverty: A New Approach recommended changes in U.S. poverty measurement that led to the SPM; it also recommended the development of a separate measure of medical care economic risk.
Collecting Compensation Data from Employers, the final report of a CNSTAT panel chaired by John Abowd (Cornell University) for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, was released in prepublication form on August 15, 2012. It is available in PDF; printed copies will be available shortly.
Using American Community Survey Data to Expand Access to the School Meals Program, the final report of a CNSTAT panel chaired by Allen Schirm (Mathematica Policy Research) for the Food and Nutrition Service of USDA, was released in prepublication form on May 14, 2012. It is available in PDF; printed copies will be available shortly.
Improving Measurement of Productivity in Higher Education, the final report of a CNSTAT panel chaired by Teresa Sullivan (University of Virginia), was released in prepublication form on May 17, 2012. It is available in PDF; printed copies will be available shortly.
Reminder: PDF versions of CNSTAT and NAS reports are available for free download at The National Academies Press website, http://www.nap.edu.
Reminder (and Advisory): Slides from previous CNSTAT public seminars, and from several major workshops, are available on the Presentations page on the CNSTAT website. Recently posted presentations include those from the:
June 14-15, 2012, Workshop on the Benefits (and Burdens) of the American Community Survey.
May 11, 2012, CNSTAT seminar on “The Future of Social Science Data Collection”
Active Panels and Workshops
[Organized by sponsor, beginning with federal departments. Chair and current and former CNSTAT members are listed. Unless otherwise noted, meetings are in Washington, DC, and include open sessions. For further information, contact the person listed as the study director or project assistant (e-mail addresses follow the formula of first initial plus last name as oneword@nas.edu). For panel studies, you may also search under Current Projects (under “Events & Activities”) on http://nationalacademies.org or http://nas.edu.]
Department of Agriculture
Panel on Alternative Estimates of Children Eligible for School Nutrition Programs (joint with the Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine)
Sponsor: Food and Nutrition Service
Duration: May 2009–April 2012
Study director: Nancy Kirkendall; associate program officer: Esha Sinha; project assistant: Agnes Gaskin
Chair: Allen Schirm (Mathematica Policy Research)
Reports: Developing and Evaluating Methods for Using American Community Survey Data to Support the School Meals Program: Interim Report, released in prepublication format on May 18, 2010, available in print and in PDF; final report, Using American Community Survey Data to Expand Access to the School Meals Program, released in prepublication form on May 14, 2012, and available in PDF; printed copies will be available shortly.
Meetings: Final panel meeting (conference call) held October 31, 2011
Department of Commerce
Panel on Addressing Priority Technical Issues for the Next Decade of the American Community Survey
Sponsor: U.S. Census Bureau
Duration: October 2011–February 2014
Study director: Krisztina Marton; senior program officer: Nancy Kirkendall; associate program officer: Esha Sinha; project assistant, Michael Siri
Chair: Alan Zaslavsky (Harvard Medical School); member: James House (University of Michigan)
Reports planned: Final report
Upcoming meetings: Second meeting scheduled for October 3-4, 2012, in Washington, DC
Panel to Review the 2010 Census
Sponsor: U.S. Census Bureau
Duration: May 2009–July 2014
Study director: Daniel Cork; senior program officer, Michael Cohen; project assistant: Anthony Mann
Chair: Thomas Cook (former president, SABRE Decision Technologies); member: John Thompson (NORC)
Reports planned: First interim report, Change and the 2020 Census: Not Whether But How, released on March 25, 2011, available in print and in PDF; second interim report and final report planned
Upcoming meetings: Thirteenth meeting scheduled for January 17-18, 2013, in Irvine, CA
Panel on Statistical Methods for Measuring the Group Quarters Population in the American Community Survey
Sponsor: U.S. Census Bureau
Duration: October 2009–September 2012
Study director: Krisztina Marton; associate program officer: Esha Sinha; project assistant: Agnes Gaskin
Chair: Paul Voss (University of North Carolina and University of Wisconsin–Madison)
Reports: Measuring the Group Quarters Population in the American Community Survey: Interim Report released December 27, 2010, and available in PDF; final report, Small Populations, Large Effects: Improving the Measurement of the Group Quarters Population in the American Community Survey, released in prepublication form on March 23, 2012; now available in print and in PDF.
Meetings: Seventh and final meeting held July 21-22, 2011, in Washington, DC; follow-up meeting held September 17, 2012
Workshop on Benefits (and Burdens) of the American Community Survey
Sponsor: U.S. Census Bureau
Duration: October 2011–December 2012
Study director: Daniel Cork; project assistant: Agnes Gaskin
Co-chairs: Linda Gage (California Department of Finance) and Ken Hodges (Nielsen)
Report planned: Workshop summary is in review
Meetings: Workshop held June 14-15, 2012, in Washington, DC
Department of Defense
Panel on the Theory and Application of Reliability Growth Modeling to Defense Systems
Sponsor: Office of the Secretary of Defense, Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, and Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics
Duration: September 2009–September 2013
Study director: Michael Cohen; project assistant: Michael Siri
Chair: Arthur Fries (Institute for Defense Analyses)
Report planned: Final report (including workshop summary) is being drafted
Upcoming meetings: Third meeting held December 2, 2011, in Washington, DC; fourth meeting TBD
Department of Energy
Panel to Review the Commercial Building and Residential Energy Consumption Surveys (CBECS/RECS) (joint with the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems)
Sponsor: Energy Information Administration
Duration: September 2009–September 2012
Study director: Krisztina Marton; senior program officer: Nancy Kirkendall; project assistant: Agnes Gaskin
Chair: William Eddy (Carnegie Mellon University)
Reports: Letter report released June 1, 2010, and available in PDF; final report, Effective Tracking of Building Energy Use: Improving the Commercial Buildings and Residential Energy Consumption Surveys, released in prepublication format on February 10, 2012, now available in print and in PDF.
Meetings: Sixth and final meeting held April 18-19, 2011; follow-up briefings completed
Department of Health and Human Services
Panel on Measuring Medical Care Risk in Conjunction with the New Supplemental Poverty Measure (joint with the IOM Board on Health Care Services)
Sponsor: Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
Duration: October 2010–September 2012
Study director: Gooloo Wunderlich; senior program officer: Jill Eden (IOM); program associate: Jacqui Sovde
Chair: Michael O’Grady (West Health Policy Center)
Report: Medical Care Economic Risk—Measuring Financial Vulnerability from Spending on Medical Care released in prepublication form, September 27, 2012, and available in PDF; printed copies will be available shortly.
Meetings: Third and final meeting held February 2-3, 2012, in Washington, DC
Panel on Measuring Subjective Well-Being in a Policy-Relevant Framework (joint with the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences)
Sponsor: National Institute on Aging and UK Economic and Social Research Council
Duration: May 2011–May 2013
Study director: Christopher Mackie; project assistant: Anthony Mann
Chair: Arthur Stone (Stony Brook University); member: Norman Bradburn (NORC); V. Joseph Hotz (Duke)
Reports planned: Interim report on the American Time Use Survey Subjective Well-Being Module has cleared review and is being prepared for transmittal and release; Final report
Upcoming meetings: Fourth meeting (closed) scheduled for September 28, 2012, in Washington, DC
Workshops on Evaluation of Measures of Subjective Well-Being and Development of OECD Guidance for National Statistical Agencies
Sponsor: National Institute on Aging
Duration: October 2010–October 2013
Study director: Christopher Mackie; project assistant: Anthony Mann
Chair: Paul Dolan (London School of Economics and Political Science); steering committee member: Norman Bradburn (NORC)
Report planned: OECD guidance document (grant has been let with OECD)
Upcoming meetings: First workshop held July 8, 2011, in Paris, France; second workshop will be held in late 2012 to review penultimate draft of OECD guidance
Department of Homeland Security
Panel on Survey Options for Estimating the Illegal Alien Flow at the Southwest Border
Sponsor: Office of Immigration Statistics
Duration: July 2011–September 2012
Study director: Malay Majmundar; senior program officer: Thomas Plewes; project assistant: Michael Siri
Chair: Alicia Carriquiry, chair (Iowa State University); member: Stephen Fienberg (Carnegie Mellon University)
Report planned: Final report is in response to review
Meetings: Third and final meeting held March 21-22, 2012, in Washington, DC.
Department of Justice
Panel on Measuring Rape and Sexual Assault in Bureau of Justice Statistics Household Surveys
Sponsor: Bureau of Justice Statistics
Duration: July 2011–April 2013
Study director: Carol House; senior program officer: Nancy Kirkendall; project assistant: Agnes Gaskin
Co-chairs: William Kalsbeek (University of North Carolina) and Candace Kruttschnitt (University of Toronto); members: Ruth Peterson (Ohio State University) and Nora Cate Schaeffer (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Report planned: Final report
Upcoming meetings: Third meeting held August 27-28, 2012, in Washington, DC; fourth meeting TBD
Department of Labor
Panel on Redesigning the BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys
Sponsor: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Duration: October 2010–February 2013
Study director: Carol House; project assistant: Agnes Gaskin
Chair: Don Dillman (Washington State University)
Reports planned: Workshop transcripts; final report has cleared review, has been transmitted, and will be released October 1, 2012
Meetings: Final meeting held January 25-27, 2012, in Washington, DC; follow-up activities will include a public briefing, October 16, 2012, at the NAS Keck Center
Corporation for National and Community Service
Panel on Measuring Civic Engagement and Social Cohesion to Inform Policy
Sponsor: Corporation for National and Community Service
Duration: September 2011–September 2013
Study director: Christopher Mackie; senior program officer: Hermann Habermann; project assistant: Michael Siri
Chair: Kenneth Prewitt (Columbia University)
Reports planned: Final report
Upcoming meetings: Third meeting held September 20-21, 2012, in Washington, DC; fourth meeting TBD
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Panel on Measuring and Collecting Pay Information from U.S. Employers by Gender, Race, and National Origin
Sponsor: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Duration: October 2010–September 2012
Study director: Thomas Plewes; project assistant: Michael Siri
Chair: John Abowd (Cornell University)
Report: Collecting Compensation Data from Employers released in prepublication form on August 15, 2012, and available in PDF; printed copies will be available shortly.
Meetings: Third and final meeting held September 27, 2011, in Washington, DC
Lumina Foundation for Education
Panel on Measuring Higher Education Productivity (joint with the Board on Testing and Assessment and the Board on Higher Education and Workforce)
Sponsor: Lumina Foundation
Duration: October 2008–March 2012
Study director: Christopher Mackie; senior program officers: Stuart Elliott (BOTA) and Peter Henderson (BHEW); associate program officer: Esha Sinha; project assistant: Michael Siri
Chair: Teresa Sullivan (University of Virginia); member: Michael Hout (University of California, Berkeley)
Report: Final report, Improving the Measurement of Productivity in Higher Education, released in prepublication form on May 17, 2102, and available in PDF; printed copies will be available shortly
Meetings: Sixth and final meeting held February 3, 2011, in Washington, DC
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Committee on Human Spaceflight (joint with the Space Studies Board, which has the lead, and the Aeronautical and Space Engineering Board, both in the NRC Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences)
Sponsor: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Duration: August 2012 – December 2014
Study director: Sandra Graham (SSB); Krisztina Marton (CNSTAT portion on ascertaining public and stakeholder opinion); project assistant (CNSTAT): Jacqui Sovde
Chair: TBD
Report: Final report
Meetings: First meeting TBD
National Endowment for the Arts and National Institutes of Health
Workshop on Research Gaps and Opportunities for Exploring the Arts’ Relationship to Health and Well-Being in Older Adults (joint with IOM, the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences, and the Committee on Population)
Sponsors: National Endowment for the Arts, National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine, National Institute on Aging, and the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
Duration: March – September 2012
Study director: Nancy Kirkendall; project assistant: Agnes Gaskin
Chair: David Reuben (UCLA School of Medicine)
Reports planned: Workshop transcript and commissioned papers
Upcoming meetings: Workshop held September 14, 2012, in Washington, DC
National Science Foundation
Panel on Developing Science, Technology, and Innovation Indicators for the Future (joint with the Science, Technology, and Economic Policy Board)
Sponsor: National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
Duration: October 2010–December 2012
Study director: Kaye Husbands Fealing; STEP director: Steven Merrill; associate program officer: Esha Sinha; project assistant: Anthony Mann
Co-chairs: Robert Litan (Bloomberg Government) and Andrew Wyckoff (OECD); member: John Rolph (University of Southern California)
Reports planned: Interim report, Improving Measures of Science, Technology, and Innovation: Interim Report, released in prepublication format, February 3, 2012, and available in PDF; final report is being drafted
Meetings: Seventh and last meeting held August 27, 2012, in Washington, DC
Note: A separate website with materials from the panel’s meetings and workshops is maintained at: http://sti-indicators.ning.com/; visitors are welcome to join and add comments. Materials from the workshop are available on the “Current Projects” page of the CNSTAT site.
Principal Investigator Conference, Science of Science and Innovation Policy, 2007-2011 Awards
Sponsor: Science of Science & Innovation Policy (SciSIP) Program, Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
Duration: March 2012 – March 2013
Study director: Kaye Husbands Fealing; project assistant: Anthony Mann
Chair: Irwin Feller (The Pennsylvania State University)
Report planned: Workshop summary by rapporteur
Upcoming meetings: Workshop held September 20-21, 2012, in Washington, DC
Workshop on Future Directions for the NSF National Patterns of Research and Development Program
Sponsor: National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
Duration: October 2010–September 2012
Study director: Michael Cohen; associate program officer: Esha Sinha; project assistant: Agnes Gaskin
Chair: Karen Kafadar (Indiana University)
Report planned: Workshop summary is being drafted
Upcoming meetings: Workshop held September 6-7, 2012, in Washington, DC
Russell Sage Foundation
Panel on a Research Agenda for the Future of Social Science Data Collection
Sponsor: Russell Sage Foundation:
Duration: July 2010–December 2012
Study director: Thomas Plewes; project assistant: Michael Siri
Chair: Roger Tourangeau (University of Maryland); member: Nora Cate Schaeffer (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
Report planned: Final report is in response to review
Meetings: Fourth and final meeting held July 11, 2011, in Washington, DC
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