Stats + Stories

Individuals and institutions around the United States are grappling with the history of racism in the country as well as the ways they themselves have contributed to it. Many are working to adopt anti-racist approaches to their work and in their everyday lives. How to be an anti-racist data scientist is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Emily Hadley. Emily Hadley is a Resea...

As COVID has ravaged the globe, it's overshadowed another ongoing global story of migration, according to new data from the International Organization for Migration migrants make up 3.5%. of the total global population with the top five countries of origin being India and Mexico China, Russia and Syria that information and more can be found in the IOM 2020 world migration report, that's the focus...

Everyone has a podcast nowadays. Whether it's about sports, politics or features some of the most fascinating discussions on the current state of statistical communication in the world. No matter the topic, it seems like someone, somewhere is talking into a microphone about it. Getting someone to act on your podcast however - that's a lot more rare. Today we're here to discuss podcasting with our...

Much of the United States is buried under snow and ice, leaving many dreaming of spring. For some – that dream of spring brings with it a longing to hear the crack of a ball on a bat or the taste of peanuts in a ballpark. With the spring thaw comes baseball season and, with it, the inevitable number crunching associated with the sport. Data and baseball is the focus of this episode of Stats and St...

Our lives are framed, every day by data and statistics, though we may not always be aware of that fact. Helping us make sense of this universe of data is the goal of many an economist, statistician, and journalist. It’s also the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Tim Harford. Tim Harford is an economist, journalist and broadcaster. He is author of "Messy", and the million-sellin...

The COVID pandemic has complicated everything from school to work to grocery shopping. The need to physically distance from people not in our homes has made it difficult to maintain friendships or causal relationships while being stuck at home with a significant other for months on end can make even the biggest house seem tiny. COVID’s impact on relationships and sex is the focus of this episode o...

If the last year’s done anything, it’s made clear how important statistics and data can be to our understanding of the world. It’s not just statisticians and public health officials pouring over things like positivity rates or infection rates, the general public’s also become more familiar with the concepts. But, sometimes, highly visible data can lead to some highly suspect conclusions. And bad d...

Race science, the belief that there are inherent biological differences between human races, has been “repeatedly debunked” in the words of the Guardian, and yet, like a pseudo-scientific hydra it raises its heard every so often. Most recently race science is the return of scientific racism is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, where we explore the statistics behind the stories and th...

Risk is a tricky thing. We like to think we understand it but when it gets down to brass tacks it can be harder to wrap your brain around things like acceptable or unacceptable risk. How do you define it how do people understand risk. The COVID-19 pandemic has only highlighted the trouble we sometimes have understanding risk, communicating risk is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with...

What are the odds of your favorite team's victory, how much should they spend on a big name player, we discuss this other topics this on today's episode of Stats+Stories with guest Robert Mastrodomenico Mastrodomenico is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society as well as owner and founder of his statistical consulting company Global Sports Statistics.. He is also the Chair of RSS’ Statisticians...

Scientific publications drive science, well that's stating the obvious, isn't it, but the form and way it's processed is historic. It's historic in the sense that there are journals that are gatekeepers, their editors that are sending out submissions to reviewers, who are then providing comments, and then it's almost that it's set in stone and locked in place for the future. But there are challeng...

This has been a year for numbers. COVID states have been a collective obsession. Vote percentages surprising. Hours spent online ... unending. The Royal Statistical Society has run the numbers and has voted for its Stats of the Year. That’s the focus of this episode Stats and Stories with guest Jennifer Rogers. Rogers is an experienced statistical consultant who has a special interest in the devel...

Communicating risk is difficult at any time but during a pandemic, communicating risk well can be what keeps a disease from spreading, as one public health official has put it, like wildfire. During the COVID 19 pandemic, experts, journalists, and elected officials have all been working to find the most effective way to communicate risk to the public. Helping people understand their risks of infec...

Data can be powerful and persuasive rhetorical tools for nonprofits as they explain the work they day and ask for monetary support from various entities, but not all nonprofits can afford to hire a statistician to crunch numbers for them. An organization in the UK is working to meet the statistical needs of nonprofits and is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Robert Mastrodo...

Cities and small towns across America once woke up to their local newspaper on their doorstep. Over the last several decades, though, those newspapers have begun to disappear a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study showing that disappearance has heralded the rise of news deserts in the United States. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Penelope Abernathy. P...

Of all places to look for statistics, who’d have thought a settlement house would be a place that you would find insight into data of their communities. However, that’s the focus of this episode of Stats+Short Stories with guest Sharon Lohr. Lohr researches and writes about statistics: where they come from, how to interpret them, and how to tell the good statistics from the bad. After receiving he...

When an individual is admitted to a hospital they are quite often hooked up to a pan plea of monitoring devices all designed to help the doctors and nurses caring for them meet their medical needs. Increasingly hospitals are exploring how machine learning can help them better monitor patient vital signs and that’s a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Glen Wright Colopy. Colopy c...

Being able to effectively communicate data is becoming an increasingly important part of a journalists job, so much so that news outlets are expanding their staffs to include data scientists and statisticians and that is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Robert Cuffe. Cuffe is the head of statistics for BBC news. Before that he worked on HIV drug trials at GlaxoSmithKline a...

With the 2020 U-S presidential election all but upon us, media are rife with prognostications about which way voters are going to swing. Will reliably red states stay red or will voters produce a blue wave that crashes across the country? Will economic uncertainty trump concerns over COVID 19? Is political polarization really as set-in-stone as some have suggested? Understanding voter behavior is...

Delia North is the Dean and Head of the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science at University of KwaZulu Natal. She has over 25 years’ experience in the teaching and design of Statistics curricula at university. Her passion for teaching Statistics has resulted in her becoming a leading figure in South African Statistics Education circles, evidenced by being Theme Chair, Topic Chair,...

The US Census Bureau is conducting its annual count of the American population this year. Concerns have emerged about this particular census and these have included potential impact of a citizenship question. The shortening of the window for the count, the deadline for reports for reapportionment. All of these concerns might translate into miscounts that impact allocation of federal funds of repre...

There are a lot of facts and figures to sift through when it comes to the COVID 19 pandemic – there are death rates and infection rates to consider, as well as the paths of infection in a particular community. Investigating the pandemic is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guests Ron Fricker and Steve Rigdon. Dr. Ronald D. Fricker, Jr. is a Professor of Statistics and the Associa...

If you’ve been following the news much then you may have noticed reporters beginning to explore how COVID is impacting crime rates around the country. Police commissioners are even appearing on newscasts trying to explain how various COVID measures may have changed the kinds of crimes they’re seeing in their cities. One of the problems becomes tying those changes directly to COVID and of course, a...

Statistics is generally a field not known for its humor, at least to the broad public. Which is a shame because humor is a way to make complicated subjects – like statistics or big data – accessible to general audiences. The intersection of humor and stats is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Timandra Harkness, coming to you from the annual meeting of the Royal Statistical...

We live at a curious moment, when data and information from a variety of sources overwhelm our senses and when there are people who are working to manipulate some of that data, spreading disinformation and discord. This has led to a skepticism and distrust of data that can make it difficult to find common ground and which, when it comes to public health, may make us all less safe. Overcoming that...