371 – The Past, Present, and Future of Federal Surveys: Observations from the Committee on National Statistics

Past, Present, and Future of Federal Surveys: Discussion

at Westat

Probability surveys of individuals, households, businesses, and other organizations are the lifeblood of federal statistical agency programs and provide vitally important information to Congress, the executive branch, state and local governments, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and academia on a wide range of topics. The Committee on National Statistics over the past 10 years has conducted intensive reviews of more than a dozen major continuing statistical surveys, including surveys of farm owners, state and local government employment and finances, research and development expenditures by industry, academia, and the federal government, crime victimization, transportation of people and goods, residential and commercial energy consumption, science and engineering personnel, consumer expenditures, time use, and the health and development of children, as well as the general purpose American Community Survey. This session will include a paper that distills findings and recommendations from these CNSTAT studies that have broad applicability for helping the federal statistical system keep its surveys as relevant, timely, and accurate as possible: What problems showed up in common across surveys? What are possible solutions? What are the major challenges and opportunities for federal surveys in the future? Discussants will comment from the perspective of federal statistical agencies and that of chairs of one or more of the CNSTAT survey reviews. The paper and discussion are expected to generate ideas and action items for everyone who is involved with running a major, long-running (longitudinal or repeated cross-section) survey. The paper is tentatively titled: Federal Surveys Under the Microscope: Lessons from the Past Decade of CNSTAT Reviews, and will be co-authored by Lawrence Brown, CNSTAT chair and Department of Statistics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and Constance Citro, CNSTAT director. There will be four discussants, two in each of these categories: Category 1 - Individuals who have chaired a CNSTAT survey review; Category 2 - Managers from Federal agencies whose surveys have been reviewed.