Celebrating the International Year of Statistics
2013 is the International Year of Statistics (IYOS), a year acknowledging the impact of statistics on all aspects of society. RTI International joins more than 2,000 organizations from nearly two-thirds of the world's countries as a participant in this event.
50 Years of Leadership in Statistics
It’s safe to say that statistics is the bedrock of our research and our history at RTI. The first researcher on our payroll was a statistician, our first project was an Institute of Statistics family health survey, and our first international project involved agricultural data analysis.
Thanks to the quality of our work and the ingenuity of our statisticians, statistics was the driving force behind our evolution from a locally-known institute to an internationally recognized research powerhouse.
One statistician more than any other left such a deep imprint on RTI—and the field of statistics as a whole—that even 33 years after her death, the story of statistics would be incomplete without mentioning her name: Gertrude Cox.
Under Dr. Cox’s leadership, statisticians served as a major resource for the design and conduct of important surveys such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), setting the stage for the education survey work we still do today.
The Role of Statistics Today
Currently, statisticians play key roles on nearly every project across the institute—including health behavior surveys, economic analyses, and environmental studies.
In the area of survey sampling and analysis, our statisticians are perhaps most well-known for their consistently stellar work on the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Since 1988, we have led this study of the nature, extent, and consequences of substance use and related mental health issues in the United States. NSDUH data support research into substance abuse and mental health, as well as the design and evaluation of treatment and prevention programs.
Within our separate business unit, RTI Health Solutions, is a skilled team of biostatisticians who offer an array of statistical services that, simply put, help clients make sense of their data. For example, working with health economists, they are able to measure the economic burden of particular diseases, including indirect costs, intangible costs, and cost of treatment. Our biostatisticians also analyze quality of life data to determine, for example, how an individual’s wellbeing may be affected over time by a disease or disability.
While our statisticians support a significant body of work in health and health care, they are also integral to environmental studies. For example, on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency, they have developed sampling designs for collecting data on water quality, air quality, and human exposure to contaminants.
Looking to the Future of Statistics
Though no one—not even our highly skilled statisticians—can predict the future, they do have a pretty good idea of where the future of their field is headed…big data.
Today, data are being collected in sizes larger than once imaginable—ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many petabytes of data in a single set.
One way we are working to best understand this data is through the Center of Excellence for Complex Data Analysis (CoDA). Established in 2012, the CoDA Center serves as a focal point for the methodological research needed to empower today’s statisticians to accurately analyze data sets that are complex due to their size or construction. Building on RTI’s core expertise in statistics, the CoDA Center brings together international experts to develop advanced statistical methods and address critical issues in the analysis of complex data.
As the field of statistics moves into an exciting new era, one with more access to data and information than ever thought possible, RTI statisticians will be on the forefront. We are committed to developing new methodologies and technologies that will advance the field and support wide-ranging efforts to make a positive impact on the world and improve the human condition.