Branch National Speaker Series Hosted by ACT Branch: Combining Data from Different Sources in Official Statistics; Examples from Small Area Estimation and Population Size Estimation

The Statistical Society of Australia's branches have come together to launch the National Branch Lecture Series, bringing you insightful talks from experts across the country. Each month, a different branch will host a webinar, showcasing diverse topics in statistics and data science. We’re excited to invite you to this month’s session, hosted by the ACT Branch.

Combining data from different sources to improve the quality of our estimates is common within official statistics. In this talk I will explore some recent work in two areas. Small area estimation uses models and auxiliary data to improve the quality of survey estimates but what happens when the auxiliary data themselves are from surveys with their own (measurement) errors? We explore applying approaches from the literature to deal with this issue within both area-level and unit-level models. Population size estimation combines two (or more) counts of the population to estimate for the unknown true total. We explore a latent-class model set-up where one of the counts is created by combining administrative data sources, which can be quite flexible in dealing with the relationship between the sources.

Biography:

James Brown joined University of Technology Sydney 12 years ago, coming from UK and University of Southampton, as Professor of Official Statistics. Since 2021, he has been Head of Mathematical Sciences Discipline. In his research he has been collaborating with National Statistical Institutes for nearly thirty years, particularly on census coverage measurement and adjustment. 

Dinner: 

After the talk we will be holding a dinner at 7.15pm at Punjabi Junction, 57 Benjamin Way, Belconnen ACT (https://www.punjabijunction.com.au)

If you are interested in attending the dinner, please let us know by 5pm Monday 28 July by entering your details at SSA Canberra Branch dinner attendance sheet or contacting Warren Muller (warren.muller@csiro.au; 0407 916 868). Please regard this as a firm commitment, not just an intention. For withdrawals after the deadline, please remove your name from the sheet and phone or text Warren (0407 916 868).

NOTE: We are offering discounts to SSA early career and student members who attend dinner! For this meeting, dinners will be a fixed charge of $15 for student members and $25 for early career members.