Proposal Description

Across the globe, traditional census and survey-focused approaches are challenged by increasing costs, declining response rates, growing privacy concerns, and evolving stakeholder needs for more timely, granular, and relevant statistical products – propelling the need for transformative innovation. At the same time, advances in data science provide an opportunity to revolutionize our capture and use of novel data sources to develop relevant statistical products that meet the diverse needs of our full continuum of data users, from novice to super users. One approach for addressing these challenges and capitalizing on the opportunities in front of us to meet the changing informational needs of the global public is to ‘flip the focus’ from merely publishing the statistics that government agencies collect to developing statistical products based on what the public needs their data to support.

By thinking beyond a single survey, census, or data element, we can begin to leverage the greater data assets we have with the statistical and data science methods we know to develop timely and relevant statistical products. Support for this shift is currently being developed at the U.S. Census Bureau, as an iterative workflow that involves engaging with end users to understand the purpose and use of their data needs-as well as their preferences for dissemination modalities-then creating tailored solutions to meet those needs. Similarly, EUROSTAT and Statistics Netherlands have committed to user-centric development of data tools and resources to improve service delivery, promote transformative change, and build statistical capacity, and the UK Office of National Statistics consulted widely prior to publishing a recommendation to support the future of population and migration statistics. Panel participants and discussants include representatives from EUROSTAT, the United Kingdom's Office of National Statistics, Statistics Netherlands, France's INSEE, the United States National Agricultural Statistics Service, and the U.S. Census Bureau.