Quality Of Official Statistics Research Articles

Developing and hosting web data apps in R programming for official statistics

Official statistics place particular emphasis on communication and dissemination of surveys’ results to citizens and stakeholders. This is typically done through the publication of press releases and presentation of aggregated data of statistical surveys. The use of web services and software that allow users to interact with the results of official statistics comes to further enhance communication, dissemination, literacy and overall quality of official statistics. This paper is related to the objectives and context of reaching a wider audience through engaging users and explains how an NSO (National Statistical Office) member without specialized knowledge of frontend-backend programming techniques can create such web services in R programming environment through “Shiny” library. The paper also reviews the issue of hosting “Shiny” apps and presents existing approaches. For demonstration purposes, an experimental version of such an application was constructed that presents in an interactive way the quarterly results of the new statistical product of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) on Greek business demography.

Funding of official statistics

The concern that funding policies and practices may influence the integrity and quality of official statistics is relatively recent. In the early 1980’s, NSOs in Europe were predominantly funded by the central government. In the late 1980’s, governments in some countries started to economise on the outlays to the NSOs encouraging them to market their products. In the 1990’s, several NSOs spent considerable effort on marketing and devising rules for the pricing of their digital products. With the great digital advances made in the course of the 1990s, the pricing efforts became basically meaningless. The NSOs again became dependent on government funding. This was underpinned by the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and their emphasis on integrity and professional independence. This re-awakened and underscored the long-held view of official statistics being public good to be shared by all interests and be publicly funded. If that principle is accepted and practiced, we are then left with the issues of how to arrange such funding in a way that allows full efficiency to be brought to the statistical processes and does not interfere with the professional independence and integrity of the NSOs. This issue is the subject of this paper.

Official statistics in the era of big data opportunities and threats

In recent years, the quantity of digital data created, stored and processed in the world has grown exponentially. The demand for statistical information has never been so apparent. For ‘official statistics’, the public informational infrastructure provided by statistical authorities, this new era offers not only essential opportunities but also manifold threats. In order for official statistics to function as a language for all kinds of societal interactions and decision-making, it is essential that the product ‘information’ is fit for purpose. This is an essential shift in perspective. Quality of official statistics needs to be seen with a much wider scope, going beyond the side of production, including the use side and analysing scientifically how these two sides are interacting in a dynamic relationship.

A systematic approach for improving the quality of official statistics: Case of Korean information and telecommunication industry

With the rapid growth of information and communication technology (ICT) in Korea, there was a need to improve the quality of official ICT statistics. In order to do this, various factors had to be considered, such as the quality of surveying, processing, and output as well as the reputation of the statistical agency. We used PLS estimation to determine how these factors might influence customer satisfaction. Furthermore, through a comparison of associated satisfaction indices, we provided feedback to the responsible statistics agency. It appears that our model can be used as a tool for improving the quality of official ICT statistics.

Integrity – a prerequisite of independence and credibility of official statistics

The paper focuses on integrity as an essential principle for an effective system of official statistics. It attempts to evaluate the impact of some recent developments on its implementation (increasing complexity and instability of the socio-economic phenomena, increasing demand for statistics, emergence of private sector statistical producers, growing media domination in society, etc.), presenting some examples of the situation in Italy. The integrity of official statistics refers to the statistical staff, processes and data, and these aspects of integrity are inseparable and complementary. Integrity is also a component of the quality of official statistics perceived by users and by society in general. The producers of official statistics must start from the principle of integrity to re-examine and integrate aspects that are apparently separate from the principles driving the activities of official statistics. Implementing integrity requires establishing clear rules (code of practice), together with a series of internal protocols and procedures for their implementation. An independent guardian body should also be established to evaluate the fulfilment of the UN principles of official statistics.

Quality Aspects of Official Environment Statistics

'High quality' is a most desirable property for all data. As a basis for the discussion, the four main aspects of quality of official statistics are presented, using a form now operational at Statistics Sweden. The relevance in environment statistics is explained, and the close connection with quality control and quality assurance, as often used in the context of environmental monitoring and other environmental measurements, is explored. With this background, a number of quality problems are discussed, including the various sources of quality loss in using emission coefficients and calculations of similar character, the difficulties of defining sampling errors in data based on samples from air and water, comparability problems, not least arising from differing definitions, other definition and measurement problems, and the need to measure the quality of statistical maps. The necessity to consider the quality of aggregates, in addition to the quality of individual measurements, is stressed.

A filter model to describe bias in official statistics on alcohol-related injuries

The paper describes a filter model that can be used to explore the possible biases that occur in reporting of alcohol-related injuries. These biases occur because of loss of data at various stages of injury reporting systems. The filter model consists of four levels or incidences, with a filter between each level. Level 1 is the total incidence of alcohol-related injuries. Level 2 is the incidence of reported alcohol-related injuries. Level 3 is the incidence of reported alcohol-related injuries where the contribution of alcohol has been correctly identified. Level 4 consists of official statistics on alcohol-related injuries. Between each of these levels is a filtering mechanism that allows some but not all data to pass through to the next level. The paper describes the nature of data at each level and the mechanisms operating at each filter to result in progressive loss of data. Estimates are provided regarding the extent of loss of data at each filter. Suggestions are provided for improving the quality of official statistics on alcohol-related injuries.