Stats + Stories

There's a lot of concern about how bots and algorithms shape our experiences, both online and off. Increasingly, those concerns are focused on our politics. Can bots fuel political polarization? Can algorithms shape political narratives? A recent study seeks to understand the agenda-building capabilities of social bots in a political context, and that is a focus of this episode of Stats and Storie...

During the 2010s, the United States netted just under one million new immigrants each year; between 2022 and 2024, that number was closer to three million. But since the election of Donald Trump, immigration to the U.S. has taken a nosedive, and potentially so has the economic growth of the country. The economic impact of the rise and fall of immigration to the U.S. is a focus of this episode of S...

When reporters cover mass shootings news outlets often struggle to find ways to cover the event that won’t inspire others to do the same thing. Something similar follows in the wake of a suicide. Journalists don’t always cover suicides in their communities but when they do one of the concerns is whether that coverage might lead to a spike in suicides after the story is out. The media’s influence o...

When you think about science’s contribution to society, do you think first about new inventions with an immediate economic benefit? What about scientific advances that deliver enormous societal or environmental benefits—but whose economic value may not be immediate or easily measured? How can these latter advances be evaluated? What is the role of governments in recognizing and promoting these adv...

Research suggests that more than half of Americans could benefit from taking a GLP-1 RA medication. The drugs were originally designed to help manage type two diabetes, but in 2024, the Food and Drug Administration approved one GLP-1, Semaglutide, for weight loss. With that approval came a spike in prescriptions for the drugs, and a spike in calls related to GLP-1s to poison control centers. That'...

An entire industry has grown up around nutrition and health. People pushing everything from shakes, to meal kits, to special diets. While some of the claims surrounding such products can be questionable at best, the field of nutrition science is growing. Filled with researchers who are working to truly understand the science of food that is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest M...

Women regularly hold leadership roles in stats departments at universities and in major statistical organizations, but it wasn't so long ago that women had to fight to be included. At one point, women faculty had to climb through the windows of the faculty club at Berkeley to attend meetings there; the stories of the struggles of women to be accepted in the profession aren't always visible. But on...

Sports and statistics go hand-in-hand. But some of those statistics are more interesting than others. Each year, the Royal Statistical Society highlights some of the most compelling sports stats in its Sports Statistic of the Year competition this year’s winners are the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with Jessica Hargreaves and Robert Mastrodomenico. Jessica Hargreaves is the chair of...

Last academic year colleges and universities across the US struggled with whether to mandate COVID vaccinations for their students. While colleges often require vaccines, the political controversy surrounding the COVID shots made adopting a vaccine policy a complicated undertaking. But according to one study, it had a profound impact on the national COVID death toll last fall. That's the focus of...

Taylor Swift is an entertainment juggernaut. She's become one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, with her Eras tour grossing more than $2 billion. During that tour, Swift surprised her audience each night with costume changes to mark different eras of her career. Now, a couple of researchers have figured out how to predict what costumes Swift would wear, when, and if these outfit col...

It can take decades for an urban community to develop, but a fraction of that time for it to be torn apart. Each year, urban residents are forced out of their homes and out of their communities to make way for gentrification or other kinds of urban development. When these individuals are forced to leave their homes, they're also forced to leave behind their histories and cultures. These changes of...

The World Health Organization defines health equity as a public health concept describing equity of access to health resources for genetic, socio-environmental, and economic determinants of health, varying according to individuals, families, and social or societal groups. Concerns about data equity have surfaced, which may result in many populations, including those in rural areas with disabilitie...

A 2010 statistic reports that, on average, there are 29,000 personal bankruptcy filings per week in the US, while another states that, on average, 50,000 pieces of floating plastic per square mile are observed in the Pacific Ocean. How might art be used to convey the magnitude of these statistics, suppose 29,000 credit card images of them were arranged to compose a larger image of a full moon, or...

As you reach the end of a long day with an excess of stress how do you recharge? Have you found that a long stroll in the sun or through the woods can provide this renewal? Walking in nature is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Dr. Altea Lorenzo-Arribas. Dr. Altea Lorenzo-Arribas is a socio-economic statistician at Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) working in colla...

In order to promote the economic and social development of countries, you have to be clear about what economic and social development even means and how you'll measure these concepts. This is where official statistics excels. Many nations continue to build the capacity of their statistical systems to address the needs of their countries. Our episode today focuses on official statistics and statist...

In the late 1600s, a book was published satirizing politics in Europe. Published two decades after the end of the 30 Years’ War, it focuses on the power of the Holy Roman Empire. That book’s impact on statistics is the focus of this episode of stats and stories, with guest Wallace Ferguson. Wallace Ferguson has taught mathematics and statistics at Chatham and Clarendon Grammar School, Kent, Englan...

With the arrival of spring, anticipation grows for the start of horse racing in the United States. The pinnacle of success in the sport is achieved by a horse that will win each leg of the Triple Crown, which includes the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. The excitement and anticipation of these three races are also associated with pre-race bookmaking and betting as wel...

Barry Nussbaum (@StatisticsBarry ) is former Chief Statistician at the US EPA, and is president-elect of the American Statistical Association. Included among his many accomplishments at the EPA was providing leadership to the agency effort to remove lead from gasoline

More than 3 billion people rely on seafood to supply a significant portion of the annual protein in their diets. That number will only rise as the global population grows. At the same time, the United Nations reports that 85% of the world's fisheries are overfished or fully exploited. Researchers are studying the global seafood trade in search of sustainable solutions, and that's a focus of this e...

The work of suffragettes in both the United Kingdom and the United States has been immortalized in textbooks, as well as in movies and TV. The women activists who helped women gain the right to vote are often portrayed as heroes and radicals. What's gotten less attention is the connection between the statistical world and the suffragette movement. That's the focus of a recent article in Chance mag...

In early January 2026, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced changes to the childhood immunization schedules, reducing the number of vaccines recommended for children. This change led to the U.S. being an outlier in terms of required vaccines for children. One reason people express concern about vaccines is fear of adverse reactions. It may surprise many that there is a com...

Three hundred and thirty-two days, that was the international statistic of the year in 2020, as identified by the Royal Statistical Society. That was the length of time between scientists publishing the genetic sequence of COVID-19 on the 11th of January, and an effective vaccine being administered on the 8th of December. This vaccine was an integral part of the world's pandemic response. Vaccines...

According to the World Bank, some 3.5 billion people live on less than $7 a day. That's more than 40% of the global population. Almost 700 million of those individuals live in extreme poverty, getting by on less than $2.15 a day. In the US in 2024, almost 40 million Americans were living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census. But what do all these numbers mean? How do the people researching inc...

Dr. Lloyd Edwards is Professor and Chair of Biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Edwards has an extensive background in collaborating with researchers in a broad range of areas in biomedical research, including cardiovascular disease, cystic fibrosis, cancer, aging, pediatrics, and minority health. His primary area of applied statistical research relates to the analysis of...

Television is filled with "will they or won't they" couples. Friends had Ross and Rachel. Parks and Rec had Leslie and Ben. The Gilmore Girls, had Lorelei and Luke. But what happens after the couple's kiss? Do we keep watching? One statistician dug into the data behind the kiss effect, and that's the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Ashley Mullan.  Ashley Mullan is a PhD stude...