MPSDS JPSM Seminar Series
March 12, 2025
12:00-1:00 pm EDT

In person, Room G300 Perry Building, and via Zoom.
The Zoom call will be locked 10 minutes after the start of the presentation.

Statistics is a Core Competency for Sound Health Policy

The American Statistical Association vision imagines a world that relies on data and statistical thinking to drive discovery and inform decisions. We know the challenges to attaining this vision are significant, so collaboration is key. As a statistician working to inform policy and decision making, I know it will take collaboration across disciplines to address society’s biggest challenges—e.g., pandemic recovery, climate change, precision medicine, education reform, or criminal justice. In an era of data ubiquity and rapid analysis, statisticians and data scientists are positioned to play a central role across application areas. The gold standard for public policy is evidence-based decision making—deliberate and strategic application of real facts and research-supported principles that yields objective evidence.

Statistical science is the foundation for evidence-based decision making. As an interdisciplinary science, it has applications to every field imaginable, making statisticians uniquely qualified to lend their expertise in multiple policy domains. Effectively informing policy requires becoming involved early in the design phase; understanding the nature of the issue; and knowing how to communicate, educate, and explain. In this talk, I will provide multiple examples from health policy to highlight both valuable contributions made by statistical scientists and lessons learned – and how this model of collaboration is relevant across other fields and application areas. I will suggest areas of improvement based on lessons learned. And extrapolating from these successes, I will suggest areas for future contributions in which the stakes are very high and involving statistics will be essential.

Madhumita (Bonnie) Ghosh-Dastidar is head of the Statistics Group and a senior statistician and data scientist at RAND, a nonprofit organization that improves policy and decision making through research and analysis. Her policy applications are focused on health and social justice. Specific examples include evaluation of neighborhood-level intervention to improve diet, health; cluster randomized trials to improve outcomes among HIV positive persons; and measurement or surveillance in health disparity. Her statistical expertise includes design, sampling, measurement, missing data, evaluations, and longitudinal/multilevel modeling. Ghosh-Dastidar's major studies include assessment of sexual assault and harassment in the U.S. military and the first Singapore mental health study to assess national prevalence. She is the 2024 President of the American Statistical Association (ASA), the largest professional organization for statisticians and data scientists. She is an elected fellow of the ASA. The ASA Committee on Women in Statistics recognized her work in statistics and data science by naming her "Top 20 Woman in Statistics and Data Science" (March 2019. Ghosh-Dastidar received her Ph.D. and M.A. in statistics from Penn State, University Park, PA; she also holds a dual Bachelor's in mathematics and computer science from Albright College, Reading, PA.