Larry Cox's Contributions at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS),

• Activity Number: 275 - In Memory of Dr. Lawrence H. Cox
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 1, 2017 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Memorial
• Author(s): Joe Fred Gonzalez, Jr.*
• Companies: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics
• Keywords: Statistical Disclosure Limitation ; Tabular Data ; Mathematical Network ; Linear Program ; Mathematical Graph ; Loss Function

Abstract

During 2000-2010, Dr. Lawrence H. Cox was Associate Director, Office of Research and Methodology, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention. During this period, he made several contributions in statistical disclosure limitation (SDL). A major contribution was the development of software for tabular data protection. The five functions that were available in the software are: 1.) Cell Suppression; 2.) Controlled Rounding 3) Synthetic Substitution (or Controlled Tabular Adjustment (CTA); 4.) Unbiased Rounding, and 5.) Subtotal Rounding. Also, several research papers were produced on measuring the impact of SDL techniques on original tabular data. In 2008, the NCHS and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) co-sponsored "Data Confidentiality: The Next Five Years" which was held in Hyattsville, MD. The purpose of this workshop was to bring together the academic and federal data confidentiality research communities, including mathematicians, mathematical statisticians, statisticians, computer scientists, and cryptographers to identify important unresolved research problems, and to promote collaboration.