Steve Pierson, ASA Director of Science Policy

The ASA’s work to increase the visibility of statisticians in policy and more broadly goes back to at least the Scientific and Public Affairs Advisory Committee’s (SPAAC) creation nearly 25 years ago. SPAAC serves as a sounding board for a variety of policy issues the ASA may consider acting upon.

Activities of SPAAC have included discussing statistical perspectives on current issues and whether the ASA should sign onto letters circulating in the scientific community or send its own letter. The committee works closely with the ASA director of science policy and science policy fellow, who are the ASA staff liaisons to the committee.

The committee’s activities have covered an array of issues over the years. A regular activity has been to organize sessions for the Joint Statistical Meetings, which have covered topics such as statistics and the supreme court, statistical measurement on public policy, election integrity, and accuracy of election polls. The committee also hosts an annual JSM poster competition highlighting the contributions statisticians make to society, from health care and the economy to national security and the environment.

In the 2000s, the committee organized a workshop on climate change and was active in election integrity issues. Both efforts resulted in an ASA board statement. SPAAC also created several Statistical Significance pieces, which serve the same purpose as the pieces for the JSM poster competition, and oversaw the 2009 congressional visits.

Moving into the next decade, the committee was instrumental in the writing and introduction of Rep. David Loebsack’s bill—the Statistical Teaching, Aptitude, and Training Act of 2010 (STAT Act). SPAAC also monitored and supported the establishment of the Office of Financial Research and led the ASA’s response to the US Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary’s decision to ban the book How to Lie with Statistics from its training sessions.

Since the mid-2010s, the committee has been the ASA’s lead on the work of the federal Commission on Evidence-Based policymaking and the subsequent work it set in motion. In 2017 and 2018, under Jerry Reiter’s leadership, the committee led the development of the joint ASA and American Mathematical Society statement regarding drawing of voting districts and partisan gerrymandering. Also in that period, SPAAC was active in responding to House bills requiring the EPA to only take regulatory actions based on research for which the underlying data is openly available. With the committee’s leadership, the ASA sent letters to Congress about the original Secret Science Act and Congress’s Honest Act. The committee’s work also led to an op-ed in The Hill, “HONEST Act Needs Honest Engagement of Scientific Community.”

In the last two years, the committee has been especially involved in responding to federal calls for comments on issues covering the US Environmental Protection Agency, a citizenship question on the decennial census, and policy-comment embargo times for the release of federal economic statistics. For more about the committee’s work, see the article about the scope and breadth of ASA science policy activities.

Looking ahead, the committee is seeking to expand upon its current activities and invites you to contact Larry Hedges, committee chair, with your suggestions and comments.