tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83103282508758431922024-03-12T17:41:05.476-07:00data insightsB. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.comBlogger181125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-1609030841308094462022-12-19T07:36:00.002-08:002024-02-02T07:20:37.239-08:00All the #GeekJokes I ever posted on TwitterThe birdsite appears to be experiencing an unplanned disassembly.
<div><br /></div><div>And while I'm working on an archive of all of my posts, which may or may not ever live here, I figured it was time to compile the greatest geek jokes of all time.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">DEMOGRAPHY JOKES, CENSUS JOKES</h3><div><div>When my kid grows up, I want him to be a demographer. </div><div>It's a job he can count on.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I spent years trying to count the whole population in the US, but eventually I came to my census.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Doctor: You should have many healthy years ahead.</div><div>Life coach: Treat every day like it's your last.</div><div>Demographer: Your days are numbered.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Man 1, sitting on a porch, sees Man 2 walk up with a tote bag & tablet.</div><div>Man1 grumbles: What are you selling?</div><div>Man2: I'm not selling anything. I'm a census taker. We're trying to find out how many people there are in the US.</div><div>Man1: Wastin' your time w me.</div><div>I have no idea</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>New research shows that birthday celebrations are associated with good health.</div><div>The more a person has, the longer they live.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Old demographers never die...</div><div>they just don't count anymore.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Growing up, it was always my childhood dream to study population dynamics...</div><div>...then I came to my census.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Monster, to roommate: This census form is asking "How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2020?"</div><div>What should we write?</div><div>Roommate: I don't know. We're monsters, not people. But definitely Count Dracula.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Woman: "Should I continue to have kids after 35?"</div><div>Me: "I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but 35 is a lot of kids."</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Q: Why are demographers exhausted?</div><div>A: They're broken down by age and sex.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Demographer, to therapist: "I started to count every single person I saw, but eventually I lost my census."</div><div><br /></div><div><div>2 mothers and 2 daughters sat down to breakfast. They had 3 cups of coffee. Each person had exactly 1 cup of coffee.</div><div>How is that possible?</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Genealogists are sometimes confused, but eventually they come to their census.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Q: How do sociologists know what to drink at Cheers?</div><div>A: They follow Norm.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Being a demographer is probably bad for my health.</div><div>My days are numbered.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>A demographer is just a mathematician broken down by age and sex.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>If you live to be 100, you've got it made.</div><div>Very few people die past that age.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>What always goes up, never goes down?</div><div>Your age.</div></div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">PUBLIC HEALTH JOKES / EPIDEMIOLOGY JOKES</h3><div><div>What do you call a public health pro with a huge social media following?</div><div>An influenzer.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Anti-vaxxers think most vaccines are in vein. But they're wrong. Most are intramuscular.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>I want to make a #geekjoke about vaccines...</div><div>but don't think the people who need it would get it.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>It's impossible to tell a good covid joke.</div><div>You have to wait two weeks to see if the audience got it.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Dr.: Last week we completed 12,000 covid tests, 5,000 were positive 7,000 were negative.</div><div>Administration: That's great news! We've cured this thing!</div><div>Dr.: ?</div><div>Admin: We have -2,000 cases now!</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Patient: Will I survive the operation?</div><div>Doc: Yes, I’m sure.</div><div>Patient: How can you be sure?</div><div>Doc: The case fatality rate for this surgery is 90%. My other 9 patients died.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>What’s the difference between an epidemiologist and a skin doctor?</div><div>One spends their career treating diseases of the epidermis. The other spends their career saying they’re not a skin doctor.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>An infectious disease walks into a bar...</div><div>Bartender: We don't serve your kind here. Get out!</div><div>Disease: Well you're not a very good host!</div></div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">DATA PRIVACY JOKES</h3><div>I had a disclosure avoidance joke... but it's private.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Knock, knock.</div><div>Who's there?</div><div>Differential privacy.</div><div>Differential privacy who?</div><div>Algorithms prevent us from disclosing that information.</div></div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">STATISTICS JOKES, RESEARCH JOKES</h3><div><div>Statistician asked her kid if she's an above-average parent.</div><div>Kid said she's just mean.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>In statistics, larger sample sizes tend to result in more reliable estimates of averages.</div><div>tl;dr: The Ns justify the means.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>People call us stats nerds, but we're really sum of the least squares.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Best reason to become a statistician?</div><div>Deviation is considered normal.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>What did the new statistics professor do when her lecture on analysis of variance flopped?</div><div>She went ova' ANOVA ANOVA it again!!!</div><div><br /></div><div>College student discussing career options w a friend said "I should be a statistician instead of a race car driver. I'm better at fitting curves than driving them."</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Person 1: There is no such thing as the digital divide!</div><div>Person 2: What makes you think that?!</div><div>Person 1: I read about a new web-based survey. 100% of respondents said they had access to the internet.</div><div>Person 2: ...</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>I was in a heated debate about how to accurately report ratios in a research brief.</div><div>Opinions were divided.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Two binomial random variables walked into a bar.</div><div>They talked very quietly because they were discrete.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Scene: Two friends talking at a bar.</div><div>Friend 1: You should get a divorce lawyer.</div><div>Friend 2: Why?!</div><div>Friend 1: I just read that 50% of people who get married wind up divorced. If you don't, your spouse will!</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Mathematicians never get old, they just lose some of their functions.</div><div><br /></div><div>The last few available graves in a cemetery are called residual plots.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Q: Why isn’t every man in a red suit with a beard Santa?</div><div>A: Because correlation doesn’t imply Claus-ation.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why is it so hard to prove Santa is a myth?</div><div>Because there's not enough information to reject the Noël hypothesis.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Friend: I need dating advice... I've tried concerts, bars, book clubs--all with no luck. Where do I meet my soul mate?!</div><div>Statistician: P-hacking is the only way I've been able to find a significant other.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Statistics is more than just numbers. It offers important life lessons, like: the average person is just mean.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>(Scene: Two neighbors having a chat)</div><div>Neighbor 1: How's your husband doing?</div><div>Neighbor 2, a statistician: That depends. What's the reference group?</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Scene: (Job interview for a statistician)</div><div>Job Applicant (Eager to make a good impression): "I always give 110% to my work!"</div><div>Hiring Manager: "Get out."</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Researcher 1: Shouldn't you be pooling across years to increase sample size?</div><div>Researcher 2 (glares from under fedora): No! This is small batch, artisanal data.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>What's the best way to serve pi?</div><div>A la mode! Anything less is mean.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>How many researchers does it take to change a light bulb?</div><div>Reviewer 2 says you've framed the question incorrectly, haven't sufficiently covered the existing literature, and implies you should doubt your self worth.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Mean girls are really just average.</div><div><br /></div><div>Politician: "If elected, I'll make sure everyone has an above-average income!"</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Did you hear the one about the statistician?</div><div>Probably.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Statistics... the only profession where you get paid to generate errors.</div><div><br /></div><div>Math jokes are usually pretty formulaic, but occasionally a statistics joke is an outlier.</div><div><br /></div><div>The problem with math jokes is that calculus jokes are all derivative, trigonometry jokes are too graphic, algebra jokes are formulaic, and arithmetic jokes are pretty basic. </div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">MATH JOKES, TRIGONOMETRY JOKES</h3><div><div>(scene: therapists office)</div><div>Therapist: So tell me why you're here?</div><div>New patient: I'm a math teacher. I have problems.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have a math joke, but it’s just derivative.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had a calculus joke, but I've since integrated it into a longer story.</div><div><br /></div><div>Child to mom: Why do I need to learn calculus?</div><div>Mom: It's an integral part of your education.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Most on-brand RateMyProfessor comment:</div><div>This geometry class was awful. The lectures were long because the professor kept going on tangents.</div><div><br /></div><div>A Roman walks into a bar...</div><div>Roman to Bartender: Can I have a martinus? Dry. Olive.</div><div>Bartender: You mean martini?</div><div>Roman: If I wanted a double, I'd have asked for one.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>A Roman walked into a bar, held up 2 fingers, and said</div><div>"Five beers, please."</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>My old prof released a set of supplementary notes on a book about differential calculus.</div><div>It was a derivative work.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>What do you call a snake that’s 3.14 feet long?</div><div>A πthon</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>My pin?</div><div>The last 4 digits of Pi</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?</div><div>Pumpkin Pi.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Me: I have more pumpkin Pi jokes!</div><div>Everyone: *rolls eyes* Oh gourd...</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Are monsters good at math?</div><div>Not unless you Count Dracula.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>If you multiply Santa by i, does that make him real?</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Not to brag, but even though this year has sucked, I have a date for New Year's Eve!</div><div>(It's December 31, 2020.)</div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div>What do trigonometry teachers do when it snows?</div><div>Make snow angles.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Student (to teacher): Who invented algebra?</div><div>Teacher: An x-pert.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why did the mathematician refuse a glass of wine?</div><div>Because you can't drink and derive.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>A mathematician, scientist, & teenager were asked to find the volume of a ball.</div><div>Mathematician calculated volume based on circumference.</div><div>Scientist submerged the ball in water and measured the displaced volume.</div><div>The teenager found the model number and looked it up online.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>I had an argument with a 90-degree angle.</div><div>Turns out it was right.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why are obtuse angles always frustrated?</div><div>Because they're never right.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>True story: I hated geometry in high school.</div><div>My teacher kept going off on tangents. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>What do you call someone who takes a long time to interpret the rate of change on a chart?</div><div>A slope-poke.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why did the man buy 1 coffee on the first day, 2 on the second, 3 on the third...</div><div>He suffered from caffeine addition.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Pi to friend: "I don't know what's wrong. It seems like everyone avoids me. Am I being paranoid or is something wrong?"</div><div>Friend: "Well... I'm not sure how to say this delicately but since you asked: It can seem endless the way you go on... and on... and on..."</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Bad math pickup line:</div><div>"Will you replace my eX without asking Y?"</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>2 mutually exclusive categories went on a date.</div><div>It didn't work out.</div><div>They had nothing in common.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>What do you call dudes who stan math?</div><div>Algebros.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why shouldn't you argue with a decimal?</div><div>Decimals always have a point.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>19 and 20 had a fight. 21.</div><div><br /></div><div>A Spanish-speaking magician told the audience she'd vanish on the count of 3.</div><div><div>Uno...</div><div>Dos...</div><div>**Poof. Gone!**</div><div>(She vanished without a tres...)</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Home buyer: Why didn't you mention in the listing that there are 288 graves in the backyard?!?</div><div>Realtor: Because it's two gross.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Math Student 1: Hey, did you see the new assignment?</div><div>Math Student 2: Don't bother me, I've got my own problems.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Math teacher to class: What is a proof?</div><div>Student: 1/2 percent alcohol!</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>You know what seems odd to me?</div><div>Numbers that can’t be divided by 2.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Robber: Give me all your money or you're Math!</div><div>Bank teller: Don't you mean "or you're History?"</div><div>Robber: DON'T CHANGE THE SUBJECT!</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>An economist thinks that her equations are an approximation to reality.</div><div>A physicist thinks reality is an approximation to her equations.</div><div>A mathematician doesn't care.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>2 mutually exclusive categories went on a date.</div><div>It didn't work out.</div><div>They had nothing in common.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>2 variables were dating, but they broke up.</div><div>They both wanted to be independent.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Did you hear about the mathematician who’s afraid of negative numbers?</div><div>She'll stop at nothing to avoid them...</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I was having an enjoyable conversation at a trigonometry conference, but then someone went off on a tangent.</div><div><br /></div><div>Parallel lines have so much in common... it's a shame they'll never meet.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Biologist, Demographer & Mathematician sit at a cafe. Across the street they see a man & a woman enter a building. Later people reappear with a 3rd person. </div><div>Biologist: They multiplied!</div><div>Demographer: Error in measurement!</div><div>Mathematician: If 1 person enters the building now, it will be empty again.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>A farmer counted 297 cows in the field.</div><div>But when he rounded them up, he had 300.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why do teenagers travel in groups of 3 or 5?</div><div>Because they can't even...</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why are math books so depressing?</div><div>Because they're filled with problems.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>To mathematicians, solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists, solutions are things that are still all mixed up.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">ECONOMICS JOKES</h3><div><div>What do plumbers, sanitation workers, and economists all have in common?</div><div>They all deal with gross domestic product.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>What’s the difference between a $20 bouquet of roses and a $100 bouquet of roses?</div><div>February 14th.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Best reason for studying economics? When you get drunk, you can say you're researching the law of diminishing marginal utility.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Mathematician, statistician, & economist apply for a job.</div><div>Interviewer asks: What does 2+2 equal?</div><div>Math: 4. Exactly 4.</div><div>Stat: Without knowing sample size, I can't calculate MOE, but, on average, 4.</div><div>Economist: *locks door* "What do you want it to equal?"</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>How many neoclassical economists does it take to change a light bulb?</div><div>None. They're waiting, in the dark, for the market to fix the problem.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Q: How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?</div><div>A: None. They'll claim they need RCTs to prove causality before they can be sure bulb should be changed. (In the meantime, a sociologist changes the bulb.)</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>First Law of Economics:</div><div>For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Engineer thinks equations approximate reality.</div><div>Physicist thinks reality is approximate to equations.</div><div>Economist doesn't care.</div></div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">PROGRAMMING JOKES, COMPUTER SCIENCE JOKES</h3><div><div>SQL statement walks into a bar and sees two tables.</div><div>It approaches, and asks “may I join you?”</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why are ghosts good at writing code?</div><div>They understand BOOlean logic.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why did the skeleton ask the ghost for help with programming?</div><div>He was having trouble with BOOlean logic.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Why did the programmer change careers?</div><div>Because he didn’t get arrays.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>I don't understand the debates about R versus python. They clearly have different strengths and weaknesses.</div><div>R can analyze tabular data and make visualizations.</div><div>Python can squish small animals and eat them.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I don't usually make New Years resolutions, but when I do, they're 2160p.</div><div><br /></div><div>SAS is user friendly. It’s just selective about who its friends are.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>I changed my password to "incorrect."</div><div>So whenever I forget my password, my computer will remind me: "Your password is incorrect."</div></div><div><br /></div><div>If you give someone a program, you will frustrate them for a day; if you teach them how to program, you will frustrate them for a lifetime.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Q: How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?</div><div>A: None. It's a hardware problem.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>If at first you don’t succeed...</div><div>Call it version 1.0.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>A machine learning algorithm walked into a bar. </div><div>Bartender asked: What would you like to drink?</div><div>Algorithm replied: What’s everyone else having?</div></div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">DATA VISUALIZATION JOKES</h3><div><div>Why did the data visualization expert start writing on the walls?</div><div>She was tired of tables.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Parent (angry): You shouldn't be teaching data visualization in 1st grade!</div><div>Teacher (confused): Why not? It's important for numeracy. </div><div>Parent: These kids are too young for something so graphic.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I made a chart of past relationships. It has an ex axis and a why axis. </div><div><br /></div><div>I can use almost any type of paper, but graph paper is where I draw the line.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>I just saw my colleague with a piece of graph paper.</div><div>I think she must be plotting something.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">CARTOGRAPHY JOKES / GEOGRAPHY JOKES</h3><div><div>What do Beyoncé, Britney, and a map key all have in common?</div><div>They're legends.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I had a GIS joke. It's legend-ary.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>What do a psychic and a cartographer have in common? </div><div>They both specialize in projections.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Farmer asked an engineer, a geographer, & a mathematician to fence of largest possible area w least amount of fence.</div><div>Economist made fence a circle & claimed most efficient design.</div><div>Geographer fenced off half of the Earth pole-to-pole.</div><div>Mathematician built tiny fence around self and said "I'm outside."</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>I met the man who invented the part of a map that explains what each symbol means.</div><div>What a legend.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>When your code won't run, what can you still count on?</div><div>Your fingers.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Geology rocks but geography is where it's at.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>We should add DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam so we can have 53 states. That's a prime number.</div><div>We can truly be one nation, indivisible.</div></div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">OTHER ODDS AND ENDS</h3><div><div>In my Zoom lecture the prof asked if anyone had any questions.</div><div>One student used the "Raise Hand" feature.</div><div>Prof calls on student and kid has the nerve to say</div><div>"Sorry. I was just stretching."</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Imagine if Americans changed from pounds to kilograms overnight.</div><div>There would be mass confusion.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>At this point, I think I've run out of material. Every math pun I think up is just derivative, every programming joke is just BASIC, and my stats jokes are just average.</div><div><br /></div>B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-25417208737906864282020-12-29T16:02:00.002-08:002020-12-29T16:02:18.833-08:002020 Census and Privacy Considerations<p>The Committee on National Statistics just released a new report <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25978/2020-census-data-products-data-needs-and-privacy-considerations-proceedings" target="_blank">2020 Census Data Products: Data Needs and Privacy Considerations</a>, which summarizes the <a href="https://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CNSTAT/DBASSE_196518" target="_blank">Workshop on 2020 Census Data Products: Data Needs and Privacy Considerations</a>.</p>B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-70363059219385861162020-03-04T03:00:00.000-08:002020-03-21T17:36:58.278-07:00Difference between mortality and case fatality rateIn light of loose use of the term "mortality" with respect to the COVID-19 epidemic, it is important to remember that there is a dramatic difference between mortality and case fatality rates. What I've noticed is that many are referring to a 2-3% "mortality" rate for COVID when what they mean is 2-3% case fatality rate.<br />
<br />
Here's why the difference matters...<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Mortality Rate = Deaths / Population at Risk </b>Often the denominator for mortality rate is the entire population at the beginning of some time period (usually a year), but sometimes we mean a specific sub-population (for example, Infant Mortality Rate = Infant Deaths / Live Births).</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Case Fatality Rate = Deaths / Population with the Condition </b>The case fatality rate is a special subset of mortality rates in that the rate is calculated only based on those with the condition.</blockquote>
<br />
Because not everyone gets every condition, Case Fatality Rates are higher--sometimes dramatically so--compared with overall Mortality Rates.<br />
<br />
<b>Example:</b><br />
<br />
The <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/meas.pdf" target="_blank">Case Fatality Rate for measles is approximately 15%</a>. This means that of those people who get measles, approximately 15 percent die. But we have widespread vaccination, so most people do not get measles. From 2016-2019 there were 0 measles deaths among the United States population of nearly 330 million. Thus, while the Case Fatality Rate remains high, the observed measles Mortality Rate for 2016-2019 in the United States was 0.<br />
<br />
In other words: the risk of death is still high for those who contract measles, but the number of cases has been low due to preventative measures (like vaccines).<br />
<br />
<b>For COVID-19:</b><br />
(Based on <a href="https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200301-sitrep-41-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=6768306d_2" target="_blank">March 1, 2020 data from WHO</a>)<br />
<br />
Mortality Rate = unknown<br />
(was 3,000 deaths / 7,000,000,000 population as of March 1, 2020 but is still rising<br />
Note: The year-end mortality rate will be much higher because the disease is still spreading, but the current number is well below 0.001%)<br />
<br />
Case Fatality Rate = 3,000 / 87,137 = 3.4%<br />
Note: This estimate may be too high because not every country has implemented widespread testing, so the number-of-cases denominator may be somewhat low. Best <a href="http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-72000-covid-19-patients-finds-23-death-rate" target="_blank">estimates to date of COVID-19 Case Fatality Rate are between 2%</a>-3.4%.<br />
<br />
So when you see someone refer to 2-3.4% for the COVID-19 "mortality rate," that does not mean the virus will exterminate 3 percent of the global population. It does mean, however, that we should take the risk seriously.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses" target="_blank">We can slow the spread</a> through social distancing, good hygiene, and (eventual) vaccine development.<br />
<br />
<br />B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-36011312217554348122019-12-31T12:50:00.000-08:002020-03-04T12:51:57.119-08:00Book roundup 2019A friend recently noted that she read more than 100 books in 2019, which sort of dampened my pride at reading 30 (15 non-fiction). Neither one of us counts flipping glossy cookbooks nor "early reader" chapter books read with the pint-sized members of our respective families. (My friend does count audiobooks, though, so maybe our eyes-on-words reading tallies aren't quite as disparate as it might seem?)<br />
<br />
Anyway, since it's year-end, it's a good time for reflection. In addition to rethinking my stance on audiobooks, I'm going to share some reflections on what I read this year.<br />
<br />
Some of the best non-fiction books I read in 2019 (regardless of original publication date):<br />
<br />
Invisible Women<br />
by Caroline Criado Perez<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=irunlikeagirl-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B07N1N6VKT&asins=B07N1N6VKT&linkId=f1c4e1af6346ee1cdf5f7ae2c3887510&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>
<br />
Thick<br />
by Tressie McMillan Cottom<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=irunlikeagirl-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1620975874&asins=1620975874&linkId=69181753aba93b9b332c47af6aa57f42&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>
<br />
Heart: A History<br />
by Sandeep Jauhar<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=irunlikeagirl-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B0796X8QMD&asins=B0796X8QMD&linkId=3b1e3ed2b609718740afbd6e5dc79f0a&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>
<br />
The Library Book<br />
by Susan Orlean<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=irunlikeagirl-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B07CL5ZLHX&asins=B07CL5ZLHX&linkId=50d18a400a1355033f9c756ecdb52d69&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
Tenth Island<br />
by Diana Marcum<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=irunlikeagirl-20&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B078974QZV&asins=B078974QZV&linkId=139413603f4af6d9e6dc72bb323fa031&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe>
B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-44578429116359720562019-12-14T06:50:00.001-08:002020-12-02T06:54:03.769-08:00Differential Privacy and the 2020 Census<p>December 11-12 the National Academies hosted a workshop on <a href="https://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CNSTAT/DBASSE_196518" target="_blank">2020 Census Data Products</a>, with a focus on the implications of implementing differential privacy as a key privacy protection tool in the "disclosure avoidance system."</p><p><br /></p><p>Presentations and recordings (including mine) can be found here:</p><p><a href="https://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CNSTAT/DBASSE_196518">https://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CNSTAT/DBASSE_196518</a></p><p><br /></p>
<iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/380264305" width="640"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/380264305">17-Session E Jarosz</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/academies">The National Academies</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-34777138799631961722019-11-06T09:27:00.003-08:002019-11-06T09:43:33.482-08:00Test run of Differential Privacy for the 2020 CensusThe Census Bureau is investigating a technique, known as Differential Privacy, to avoid inadvertently disclosing individual information in the 2020 Census. (See the Census Bureau's overview for more on <a href="https://www.census.gov/about/policies/privacy/statistical_safeguards/disclosure-avoidance-2020-census.html" target="_blank">how differential privacy works</a>.)<br />
<br />
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pT19VwBAqKA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />
But some data users are concerned that the level of noise added to the data, or the process used to add that noise, may result in poor data quality.<br />
<br />
To give data users a chance to assess how Differential Privacy (DP) would affect the quality of data, the Census Bureau released <a href="https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/2020-census/planning-management/2020-census-data-products/2010-demonstration-data-products.html" target="_blank">demonstration data based on the 2010 Census</a>. The demonstration data can be compared with original 2010 Census tables to see how much "noise" DP would introduce. Files are available via FTP download and require SAS or other statistical programming to open the files and extract the data.<br />
<br />
For users who do not have access to the statistical software or coding skills required to work with the raw demonstration data tables, IPUMS NHGIS produced <a href="https://www.nhgis.org/differentially-private-2010-census-data" target="_blank">user friendly data tables</a> that can be accessed on their website.<br />
<br />
The Committee on National Statistics has also issued a <a href="http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CNSTAT/DBASSE_196518" target="_blank">Call for Input</a> for their December <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/o/committee-on-national-statistics-17677871909" target="_blank">Workshop on 2020 Census Data Products: Data Needs and Privacy Considerations</a>.B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-3174563930309210572019-06-14T11:19:00.001-07:002019-06-14T11:19:19.697-07:00Geeky jokes about demography, statistics, epidemiology, and census<i>I post a #GeekJoke on <a href="https://twitter.com/DataGeekB" target="_blank">Twitter </a>(almost) every Friday afternoon.</i><br />
<i>Here are a few recent favorite demographer jokes, statistician jokes, census jokes, and even a an epidemiology joke...</i><br />
<br />
Demographer, to therapist: "I started to count every single person I saw, but eventually I lost my census."<br />
<br />
<br />
(scene: therapists office)<br />
Therapist: So tell me why you're here?<br />
New patient: I'm a math teacher. I have problems.<br />
<br />
<br />
At my last job interview, I told my interviewer that I plan to give 110%.<br />
Unfortunately, I was applying to be a statistician.<br />
<br />
<br />
(Scene: Two neighbors having a chat)<br />
Neighbor 1: How's your husband doing?<br />
Neighbor 2, a statistician: That depends. What's the reference group?<br />
<br />
<br />
SAS is user friendly. It’s just selective about who its friends are.<br />
<br />
<br />
Teen: Hey mom, I talked to my guidance counselor today, and I know what I want to do for a job.<br />
Mom: Great, honey, what did you choose?<br />
Teen: Demography. It's the only career that counts.<br />
<br />
<br />
Researcher 1: Shouldn't you be pooling across years to increase sample size?<br />
Researcher 2 (glares from under fedora): No! This is small batch, artisanal data.<br />
<br />
<br />
I changed my password to "incorrect."<br />
So whenever I forget my password, my computer will remind me: "Your password is incorrect."<br />
<br />
<br />
Genealogists are sometimes confused, but eventually they come to their census.<br />
<br />
<br />
An infectious disease walks into a bar...<br />
Bartender: We don't serve your kind here. Get out!<br />
Disease: Well you're not a very good host!<br />
<br />
<br />
P-hacking is the only way I've been able to find a significant other.<br />
<br />
<br />
Why shouldn't you argue with a decimal?<br />
Decimals always have a point.<br />
<br />B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-41941558863588337242019-04-22T18:00:00.000-07:002019-04-22T18:00:07.856-07:002020 citizenship questionUseful background information for those trying to understand the implications of the April 23, 2019 Supreme Court hearing on the citizenship question and the 2020 Census<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/21/715774818/supreme-court-prepares-to-hear-2020-census-citizenship-question" target="_blank">Supreme Court Prepares To Hear 2020 Census Citizenship Question</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/22/new-research-shows-just-how-badly-citizenship-question-would-hurt-census/?utm_term=.de35e33e529e" target="_blank">New research shows just how badly a citizenship question would hurt the 2020 Census</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.prb.org/citizenship-question-risks-a-2020-census-undercount-in-every-state-especially-among-children/" target="_blank">Citizenship Question Risks a 2020 Census Undercount in Every State, Especially Among Children</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.prb.org/webinar-questionable-why-an-untested-citizenship-question-threatens-the-2020-census/" target="_blank">Questionable? Why an Untested Citizenship Question Threatens the 2020</a> Census (video)</li>
</ul>
B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-42208159439255429202019-04-19T08:00:00.000-07:002019-04-19T15:23:59.389-07:00FactFinder is dead! Long live data.census.gov!<i>Did you know... </i><br />
American FactFinder is going away and will be replaced by <a href="http://data.census.gov/">data.census.gov</a><br />
<br />
If you've been working with Census Bureau data for many years (as some of us have), you'll recall how much fun (<i>it was fun, right?</i>) we had with the first iteration of FactFinder. But eventually CB worked out the kinks and we all grew to know and love (<i>it's love, right?</i>) the interface.<br />
<br />
So this swap to a new system feels like a little bit of history repeating. We data users will probably pull out our hair for awhile, bemoan the loss of a familiar system, gripe about the new platform early and often... Then eventually we'll figure out the new tricks, and one day we'll realize this "new thing" has become the "old, familiar thing."<br />
<br />
And that transition starts now.<br />
<br />
2018 ACS data will NOT be loaded into AFF, so if you need new data, your choices will be <a href="http://data.census.gov/">data.census.gov</a> or the <a href="https://www.census.gov/developers/" target="_blank">API</a>.<br />
<br />
Here's a helpful video on how to us the new system:<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5aUMspCxJik" width="560"></iframe>B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-31965041935183104592018-12-21T11:49:00.002-08:002018-12-21T11:49:24.607-08:00Best books I read in 2018Over the course of the past year I read at least 50 books (19 non-fiction), not counting flipping through a parade of glossy cookbooks borrowed from the public library and bedtime reading at least a dozen Boxcar Children books with my son.<br />
<br />
Here are some of the highlights, in no particular order...<br />
<br />
<a href="https://amzn.to/2SeGTlR" target="_blank">Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City</a><br />
by Matthew Desmond<br />
Part ethnography, part detailed analysis of Milwaukee rental market, part policy brief, this book may change the way you view wealth and poverty in America. The personal stories make the book a page-turner, but those anecdotes are supported with concrete evidence that there are structural flaws in our housing markets. This book should be required reading.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://amzn.to/2V1ToTG" target="_blank">Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy Book 1)</a><br />
by Jennifer Worth<br />
I did not find out about the PBS television adaptation of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/show/call-midwife/" target="_blank">Call the Midwife</a> until months after I read the first book, but even if the series is great viewing, I'm going to recommend the books anyway. Worth's descriptions of 1950s Docklands slums in London, with their coal soot, limited plumbing, and rickets-inducing lack of sunlight are vivid, and her tales of midwifery, family structure, and social norms are compelling.<br />
<br />
And I know I'm really late to this party, but <a href="https://amzn.to/2BD0XHA" target="_blank">The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer</a> by Siddhartha Mukherjee was worth every minute spent reading its nearly 600 pages.<br />
<br />
And I just started...<br />
<a href="https://amzn.to/2Gx9XU8" target="_blank">Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 2: The Defining Years, 1933-1938 (Eleanor Roosevelt, 1933-1938)</a><br />
by Blanche Wiesen Cook<br />
This biography of Eleanor Roosevelt is brilliantly written, meticulously researched, and is at times laugh-out-loud funny. Did you know ER (as the author refers to her) . While ER was imperfect, as all humans are, she was a staunch advocate for women's rights and minority rights. In one incident, a racist woman complained about ER's work on racial equality, so ER replied that she knew black people who were “not only the equal of whites but mentally superior.” <a href="https://twitter.com/AlpertReyes" target="_blank">Emily Alpert Reyes</a> recommended this book, so now I'm paying that recommendation forward.B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-42907744093738358982018-07-13T12:27:00.003-07:002018-07-13T12:27:27.971-07:00Geek Jokes GaloreIn case you don't already play along, every Friday I post a #GeekJoke on Twitter (<a href="https://twitter.com/DataGeekB" target="_blank">@DataGeekB</a>)<br />
<br />
<i>Over the years we've had demographer jokes, statistician jokes, economist jokes, mathematician jokes, and more. Here are a few of my favorites:</i><br />
<br />
A demographer is just a mathematician broken down by age and sex.<br />
<br />
I just saw my colleague with a piece of graph paper.<br />
I think she must be plotting something.<br />
<br />
Why do teenagers travel in groups of 3 or 5?<br />
Because they can't even...<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Did you hear about the mathematician who’s afraid of negative numbers?<br />
She'll stop at nothing to avoid them...<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
First day on the job, a boss warns her new employee to avoid the statisticians in the cafeteria: "They're just mean."</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
To women who ask: "Should I continue to have kids after 35?"</div>
<div>
Me: "I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but 35 is a lot of kids."</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
2 mutually exclusive categories went on a date.</div>
<div>
It didn't work out.</div>
<div>
They had nothing in common.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
Biologist, Demographer & Mathematician sit at a cafe. Across the street they see a man and a woman enter a building. Later those two people reappear with a 3rd person. </div>
<div>
They multiplied! says the Biologist</div>
<div>
It's an error in measurement! says the Demographer.</div>
<div>
If 1 person enters the building now, it will be empty again, concludes the Mathematician.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There's a fine line between a numerator and a denominator...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
An economist thinks that her equations are an approximation to reality.</div>
<div>
A physicist thinks reality is an approximation to her equations.</div>
<div>
A mathematician doesn't care.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
If you live to be 100, you've got it made.</div>
<div>
Very few people die past that age.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A farmer counted 297 cows in the field.</div>
<div>
<div>
But when he rounded them up, he had 300.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
Why do teenagers travel in groups of 3 or 5?</div>
<div>
Because they can't even...</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
I made a chart of past relationships.</div>
<div>
It has an ex axis and a why axis.</div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjffi5X9BJrd8W04NnkovBXAGtH_L9gdD-U_OKqyqCY5A-peGavqVqsHtXBfyNKrqV4Glbhdg_bGyNYD0ayAganIFJKh5tvrROz0qrEai2xJYqHax27_4jHdChy5EeS1Qd8_I_rt_BtzTA/s1600/WhyAxis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="469" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjffi5X9BJrd8W04NnkovBXAGtH_L9gdD-U_OKqyqCY5A-peGavqVqsHtXBfyNKrqV4Glbhdg_bGyNYD0ayAganIFJKh5tvrROz0qrEai2xJYqHax27_4jHdChy5EeS1Qd8_I_rt_BtzTA/s400/WhyAxis.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h2>
And a couple of geeky riddles:</h2>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
What always goes up, never goes down?</div>
<div>
Your age.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
When your code won't run, what can you still count on?</div>
<div>
Your fingers.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
2 mothers & 2 daughters sat down to breakfast. They had 3 cups of coffee. Each person had exactly 1 cup of coffee.</div>
<div>
How is that possible?</div>
<div>
(Hint: If you've worked w complex household structure data, you'll figure this one out)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-37534464696129379012018-05-17T14:44:00.000-07:002018-05-21T11:49:38.099-07:002017 births: lowest teen and young adult birth rate on record, rising rates at older ages<i>Highlights from the preliminary 2017 birth data</i><br />
<br />
Birth rates for U.S. teens and early 20-something are at (<a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2016/06/2015-data-show-historic-low-teen-births.html" target="_blank">another</a>!) all-time low, and birth rates continue to rise at ages 40 and older.<br />
<br />
Another important milestone is that, for the first time on record (2016), birth rates for ages 30-34 exceeded the rate for ages 25-29.<br />
<br />
As a historical demographer, who has some experience with fertility and mortality rate trends over the past century (and <a href="http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/573.abstract" target="_blank">the century before</a>), and I can say with conviction that the trend toward higher birth rates at ages 30+ is not really new. Birth rates for women ages 35 and older are <b><i>not </i></b>higher now than ever. (They're not even higher now than they were in the 1950s and 1960s.) I would argue that, rising birth rates among those in their 30s and 40s is more a return to long-run historical norms than an aberration. (<i>First </i>births at older ages is a newer phenomenon, the <i>rate </i>at older ages is nothing new.)<br />
<br />
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<br />
The <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/nvsr.htm" target="_blank">National Vital Statistics Reports</a>, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provide historical birth rate data by age of mother as far back as 1970. Earlier years are available, but must be compiled from a variety of other sources including the older, and often PDF-scan-only <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/mvsr.htm" target="_blank">Monthly Vital Statistics Reports</a> and the <a href="http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1950-02.pdf" target="_blank">U.S. Statistical Abstract</a>. From those sources I collected data as far back as 1920, with complete annual data from 1935-present. The historical birth rates (births per 1,000 women) are shown in the chart above.<br />
<br />
<i>I am happy to share the raw data upon request. Feel free to <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/p/contact.html" target="_blank">contact me</a> for more information.</i>B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-19428108264633968102018-05-11T16:30:00.000-07:002018-05-11T16:30:05.809-07:00A note about measuring maternal mortality in TexasYou may (or may not) have heard that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5001799/" target="_blank">Texas has the highest maternal mortality in the nation</a>, as a result of recent, dramatic increases in reported maternal deaths.<br />
<br />
Or... it doesn't.<br />
<br />
Researchers working for the state of Texas conducted a <a href="https://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Fulltext/2018/05000/Identifying_Maternal_Deaths_in_Texas_Using_an.3.aspx" target="_blank">reassessment of the 2012 maternal mortality records</a>. Researchers hypothesize that data entry errors led to records being inaccurately classified as maternal deaths. Knowing, as we do, that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/birt.12333" target="_blank">maternal mortality reporting has some considerable data accuracy challenges</a>, this seems on the surface to be a good faith effort.<br />
<br />
That said, I have concerns with the methods in the Texas analysis (explained in more detail below). In addition, while the authors do a nice job of stating the limitations of their work--data are not comparable to other years or other locations--the news media did exactly the opposite: compare to other places and times.<br />
<br />
In 2012 Texas had 147 mortality records with an ICD-10 code indicating maternal mortality (codes A34, O00–O95, or O98–O99). Texas researchers used record matching <i>and </i>extensive death and health record review for the 147 maternal mortality coded deaths. Through this process the researchers identified birth or pregnancy status (within 42 days) at the time of death. This extensive review found a number of false positive results. Researchers then removed these deaths from the maternal mortality count. On this point, the analysis seems both reasonable and robust.<br />
<br />
However, any analysis of data coding errors should clearly identify both false positives and false negatives. The search for false positives was (as described above) robust. The search for false negatives, on the other hand, used record matching <i>alone</i>. This may seem a minor point, but it is important because the robust methods used to find false positives were not similarly applied to find false negatives. Moreover, the record linkage process matched on SSN, name, and county of residence. Given their hypothesis of data entry errors, finding exact matches for all three of those open-ended data entry fields raises all sorts of possibilities for missed matches. In other words, the methods introduced potential bias in favor of finding false negatives and against finding false positives.<br />
<br />
I recognize that individual case review for 9,000+ death records was probably implausible due to time and funding constraints. Still, more could easily have been done to try and identify false negatives. For example, they might have added a record linkage between all birth records and all death records.<br />
<br />
And... Here's the piece that puzzles me most...<br />
<br />
The Texas researchers posit (repeatedly) that the number of false positives is some artifact of newer data entry techniques. They state, specifically, that the upswing in the reported maternal mortality rate was driven by an increase in e-reporting:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The percentage of death certificates submitted electronically increased from 63% in 2010 to 91% in 2012"</blockquote>
But... if electronic reporting was the problem, why wouldn't the problem have shown up in 2010 when 63% was already e-reported? Why do they think an incremental 28 percentage points was pivotal when first 63% was not? And, perhaps most importantly, why do they skip over 2011 when that year (not 2012) was the pivotal year for the increase in reported maternal deaths in Texas? (2011 was also the year TX began restricting family planning and reproductive health services.)<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuk5d0SnqwaJ52jgBp2c6EJEdI88zGWEDUm2ORU0mD6V8hAR96ua9cPGzW-Cth-Bh_spu_wVTm_olQMkvpA2jlTF_jVeGjq23jpRxE_nrbb0iYG3UbajX9QFf3Sa9XqvFTu_TdP5WcHj8/s1600/TexasMaternalMortTrend.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="452" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuk5d0SnqwaJ52jgBp2c6EJEdI88zGWEDUm2ORU0mD6V8hAR96ua9cPGzW-Cth-Bh_spu_wVTm_olQMkvpA2jlTF_jVeGjq23jpRxE_nrbb0iYG3UbajX9QFf3Sa9XqvFTu_TdP5WcHj8/s400/TexasMaternalMortTrend.PNG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Texas Maternal Mortality Trend<br />Source: CDC WONDER, Multiple Cause of Death database, and natality database<br />Note: CDC reports 148 deaths in ICD-10 codes A34, O00-O95,O98-O99), TX reports 147</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-70015838033209760252018-02-14T05:00:00.000-08:002018-02-14T05:00:37.080-08:00Valentines by the numbers (2018)According to the National Retail Federation, U.S. consumers will spend <a href="https://nrf.com/resources/consumer-research-and-data/holiday-spending/valentines-day">nearly $20 BILLION</a> on Valentines this year. (More than half of celebrants will give candy as a gift, but most spending will be on jewelry.)<br />
<br />
While love may be in the proverbial air, young adults are not rushing down the aisle. <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf" target="_blank">Median age at first marriage</a> continues to reach new record highs (now 29.5 for men and 27.4 for women).<br />
<br />
While age at first marriage has been increasing, and it is incredibly <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-hughes/what-is-the-real-divorce-_b_785045.html" target="_blank">difficult to get an accurate measurement of the rate of divorce</a>, by all accounts divorce rates are falling and may be at a <a href="https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/anderson-divorce-rate-us-geo-2015-fp-16-21.html" target="_blank">40-year low</a>. By Census Bureau measures, <a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p70-125.pdf" target="_blank">divorce rates peaked</a> in the years changes in divorce laws that occurred in the mid 1970s, but then leveled off and fell slightly. Some of this trend can be attributed to lower marriage rates (fewer marriages lead to fewer divorces), but some is likely a result of people <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/number-of-long-lasting-marriages-in-us-has-risen-census-bureau-reports/2011/05/18/AFO8dW6G_story.html" target="_blank">waiting longer</a> to get married in the first place.<br />
<br />
Longer life expectancy and lower divorce rates mean that marriage duration has (on average) increased in recent years. 80 percent of marriages <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/abc_list_d.htm#divorce" target="_blank">last at least 5 years</a>, and 68 percent last 10 years or more, according to data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based on the National Survey of Family Growth (2006-2010). This is an increase from the <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_028.pdf" target="_blank">2002 survey</a>, in which 78 percent of marriages last at least 5 years and two thirds last 10 years or more.<br />
<br />B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-52738636033600106832018-01-18T12:15:00.001-08:002018-01-22T10:54:20.803-08:00Where do go for data if the federal government shuts down (2018 edition)<i>Because we're in the <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2013/10/where-to-go-for-data-when-federal.html" target="_blank">countdown to shutdown again</a>, data users should know that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-bunch-of-federal-web-sites-will-shut-down-with-the-government/" target="_blank">most federal websites will shut down when the government does</a>... </i><br />
<br />
Here are some other helpful data resources, ranging from national to state and local downloads, to get you through any dark days with no federal data access:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://usa.ipums.org/usa/" target="_blank">IPUMS</a> for all things Census, CPS (and more)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.shadac.org/datacenter" target="_blank">SHADAC</a> for all things healthcare</li>
<li><a href="http://www.prb.org/DataFinder.aspx" target="_blank">Population Reference Bureau</a> for all things American Community Survey</li>
<li><a href="http://datacenter.kidscount.org/" target="_blank">Annie E. Casey Foundation</a> for all things child well-being related</li>
<li><a href="http://mcdc.missouri.edu/" target="_blank">Missouri Census Data Center</a> (another all-things Census option)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nhgis.org/" target="_blank">National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS)</a>, <a href="http://geocommons.com/search?query=census" target="_blank">GeoCommons</a>, and <a href="https://www.policymap.com/" target="_blank">PolicyMap</a></li>
<li><a href="http://beta.censusreporter.org/" target="_blank">Census Reporter</a> for another source of American Community Survey data</li>
</ul>
You may also want to try the "<a href="http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/google.com" target="_blank">Wayback Machine</a>," an online archive of webpages.<br />
<br />
For state-specific data... here are links provided by readers and colleagues around the nation:<br />
<br />
Check the <a href="https://sdcclearinghouse.com/" target="_blank">Clearinghouse of SDCs</a> for a comprehensive listing of Census State Data Centers, or refer to one of these state-based resources:<br />
<ul>
<li>Alabama (<a href="http://cber.cba.ua.edu/data.html" target="_blank">Center for Business and Economic Researh, University of Alabama</a>)</li>
<li>Alaska (<a href="http://commerce.alaska.gov/cra/DCRAExternal" target="_blank">Department of Commerce - Community Database Online</a>)</li>
<li>Arizona (<a href="http://www.workforce.az.gov/" target="_blank">Office of Employment and Population statistics</a>)</li>
<li>Arkansas (<a href="http://www.aiea.ualr.edu/csdc.html" target="_blank">Census state data center</a> - note: some downloadable data, some broken links)</li>
<li>California (<a href="http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/" target="_blank">Department of Finance</a>, <a href="http://www.kidsdata.org/" target="_blank">KidsData.org</a>)</li>
<li>Colorado (<a href="http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/DOLA-Main/CBON/1251593300013" target="_blank">Colorado State Data Center</a>, and <a href="https://demography.dola.colorado.gov/" target="_blank">Colorado State Demography Office</a>)</li>
<li>Connecticut (<a href="http://ctsdc.uconn.edu/connecticut_census_data.html" target="_blank">Connecticut State Data Center</a>)</li>
<li>Delaware (<a href="http://stateplanning.delaware.gov/census_data_center/2010_data.shtml" target="_blank">Delaware State Data Center</a>)</li>
<li>District of Columbia (<a href="http://www.planning.dc.gov/DC/Planning/DC+Data+and+Maps/DC+Data" target="_blank">District of Columbia, Dept. of Planning</a>)</li>
<li>Florida (<a href="http://edr.state.fl.us/Content/population-demographics/data/" target="_blank">Office of Economic and Demographic Research</a>)</li>
<li>Georgia</li>
<li>Hawaii (<a href="http://dbedt.hawaii.gov/census/" target="_blank">Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism</a>)</li>
<li>Idaho</li>
<li>Illinois (<a href="http://www.illinoisbiz.biz/dceo/Bureaus/Facts_Figures/Illinois_Census_Data/" target="_blank">Illinois Dept. of Commerce and Economic Opportunity</a>)</li>
<li>Indiana (<a href="http://www.stats.indiana.edu/" target="_blank">Stats Indiana</a>)</li>
<li>Iowa</li>
<li>Kansas</li>
<li>Kentucky</li>
<li>Louisiana</li>
<li>Maine</li>
<li>Maryland</li>
<li>Massachusetts</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Minnesota (<a href="http://www.mncompass.org/demographics/key-measures.php?km=population#1-5011-g" target="_blank">Minnesota Compass</a>)</li>
<li>Mississippi</li>
<li>Missouri</li>
<li>Montana</li>
<li>Nebraska</li>
<li>Nevada</li>
<li>New Hampshire</li>
<li>New Jersey</li>
<li>New Mexico</li>
<li>New York (<a href="http://esd.ny.gov/NYSDataCenter.html" target="_blank">New York State Data Center</a>, <a href="http://pad.human.cornell.edu/" target="_blank">Cornell Program on Applied Demographics</a>)</li>
<li>North Carolina (<a href="https://www.osbm.nc.gov/facts-figures/linc" target="_blank">NC Budget and Management</a>)</li>
<li>North Dakota (<a href="http://www.ndkidscount.org/" target="_blank">North Dakota Kids Count</a>, <a href="http://www.ndcompass.org/about/whos-involved.php#.Uky4UIaTiSo" target="_blank">North Dakota Compass</a>)</li>
<li>Ohio</li>
<li>Oklahoma</li>
<li>Oregon (<a href="http://www.pdx.edu/prc/oregon-census-state-data-center" target="_blank">Oregon Census State Data Center</a>)</li>
<li>Pennsylvania (<a href="http://pasdc.hbg.psu.edu/Data/tabid/1010/Default.aspx" target="_blank">Pennsylvania State Data Center</a>)</li>
<li>Puerto Rico</li>
<li>Rhode Island</li>
<li>South Carolina</li>
<li>South Dakota</li>
<li>Tennessee</li>
<li>Texas (<a href="http://txsdc.utsa.edu/" target="_blank">Texas State Data Center</a>)</li>
<li>Utah (<a href="http://gomb.utah.gov/budget-policy/demographic-economic-analysis/" target="_blank">Utah Governor's Office of Planning & Budget</a>)</li>
<li>Vermont (<a href="http://www.uvm.edu/crs/?Page=indicators_2010/profiles.php" target="_blank">Vermont indicators online</a>)</li>
<li>Virginia</li>
<li>Washington (<a href="http://www.ofm.wa.gov/pop/default.asp" target="_blank">Office of Financial Management / State Demographer</a>)</li>
<li>West Virginia</li>
<li>Wisconsin (<a href="https://getfacts.wisc.edu/" target="_blank">Wisconsin Get Facts</a>)</li>
<li>Wyoming</li>
</ul>
<em></em><br />
<em><strong>Please tweet me </strong></em><a href="https://twitter.com/DataGeekB" target="_blank"><em><strong>@DataGeekB</strong></em></a><em><strong> </strong></em><em><strong>if you have recommendations to add to the list!</strong></em><br />
<em><br /></em>
<em>Special thanks to </em><i><a href="https://twitter.com/mecline6" target="_blank">@mecline6</a>, </i><i><a href="https://twitter.com/censusSDC" target="_blank">@censusSDC</a>,</i><em> <a href="https://twitter.com/SR_spatial" target="_blank">@SR_Spatial</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/MetroGram" target="_blank">@MetroGram</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CarlSchmertmann" target="_blank">@CarlSchmertmann</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/NDCompass" target="_blank">@NDCompass</a> for recommending several links.</em>B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-75658647026957267232017-06-20T10:05:00.003-07:002017-06-20T10:06:37.293-07:00Young Women's Well-being Declined Gen X to Echo BoomI haven't been writing for the blog lately, but I have been <i><b>writing</b></i>.<br />
<br />
Mark Mather and I, along with the team at PRB, published a new report on the state of young women's well-being in the U.S. across four generations?<br />
<br />
The news?<br />
Not so great for Millennials.<br />
<br />
There has been progress in some areas (rising educational attainment, falling rates of cigarette smoking and homicide) but dramatic reversals in others (rising rates of incarceration, poverty, suicide, and maternal mortality).<br />
<br />
Read the full report:<br />
<a href="http://www.prb.org/Publications/Reports/2017/US-Womens-Well-Being-Stalled.aspx" target="_blank">Losing Ground Young Women’s Well-Being Across Generations in the United States</a><br />
<br />
Or watch the video:<br />
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6EjADa1zcGA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-60189697118953634482017-02-24T04:36:00.000-08:002017-02-24T04:36:25.424-08:00More geeky jokes<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you follow me on Twitter (</span><a href="https://twitter.com/DataGeekB" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">@DataGeekB</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">) you know that I post a geek joke almost every Friday afternoon. Here are a few of my favorite statistics jokes, programmer jokes, and other geeky jokes</span> (in no particular order):<br />
<br />
<b>PROGRAMMER AND LOGIC JOKES:</b><br />
<br />
Q: How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?<br />
A: None. It's a hardware problem.<br />
<br />
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?<br />
<br />
If you give someone a program, you will frustrate them for a day; if you teach them how to program, you will frustrate them for a lifetime.<br />
<br />
<b>STATISTICS JOKES AND MATH JOKES:</b><br />
<br />
There is a fine line between a numerator and a denominator.<br />
<br />
Child to mom: Why do I need to learn calculus?<br />
Mom: It's an integral part of your education.<br />
<br />
I was having fun making calculus puns, but then someone went off on a tangent.<br />
<br />
Parallel lines have so much in common... it's a shame they'll never meet.<br />
<br />
Romans didn't find algebra difficult. X was always 10.<br />
<br />
Q: What do you get when you put root beer in a square glass?<br />
A: Beer.<br />
<br />
An infinite crowd of mathematicians enters a bar. The first one orders a pint, the second one a half pint, the third one a quarter pint… “I understand”, says the bartender – and pours two pints.<br />
<br />
A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers, and says "Five beers, please."<br />
<div>
<br />
Hand over the calculator, friends don’t let friends derive drunk.<br />
<br />
If 666 is evil, is 25.807 the root of evil?</div>
B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-24341149481582234762017-01-19T16:16:00.000-08:002017-01-19T16:16:09.357-08:00An administration, by the numbersWhile I am a fervent participant in policy debates, I tend to stay away from partisan politics in all things blog-related.<br />
<br />
That said, this was too good to not share.<br />
<br />
NPR compiled some key socio-economic stats on the nation when Obama was sworn into the white house 8 years ago, and the (spoiler alert) much better conditions the president elect will inherit.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu1bvmt6368u1eOAN8y33fDWW5EzhsOWQ-pyvkd7u-3UdvVPozyPWOfhvhMkAzwTSyvqIQTtTFm89Q8gl2Axv5gKAEM-wPG1lIUE5iBbgfHcUYIRLFYODnxbkfLvfM1OxcF_rS-zm3ZPo/s1600/ObamaVTrump.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu1bvmt6368u1eOAN8y33fDWW5EzhsOWQ-pyvkd7u-3UdvVPozyPWOfhvhMkAzwTSyvqIQTtTFm89Q8gl2Axv5gKAEM-wPG1lIUE5iBbgfHcUYIRLFYODnxbkfLvfM1OxcF_rS-zm3ZPo/s400/ObamaVTrump.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The nation Obama inherited and the one he left for future generations</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-91806845105614762962016-12-09T10:48:00.000-08:002017-01-19T16:08:19.443-08:00Unpleasant reversalIn preliminary mortality data out this month from <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db267.htm" target="_blank">CDC</a>, a few issues stand out. First, estimated life expectancy at birth decreased (by 0.1 year) between 2014 and 2015. Granted, a single year does not a trend make, but some of the underlying details are downright disturbing:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Drug overdose mortality rates are up (see <a href="http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2016/young-adult-suicide.aspx" target="_blank">details for young adults</a>)</li>
<li>Suicide mortality is up (see <a href="http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2016/young-adult-suicide.aspx" target="_blank">details for young adults</a> and <a href="http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2016/suicide-replaces-homicide-second-leading-cause-death-among-us-teens.aspx" target="_blank">for teens</a>)</li>
<li>Infant mortality (especially unintentional injuries) are up</li>
</ul>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLwRVDd4Ur7fEGrbiObP6mh426j0NuAQzFVAQqsOniAYsVkXa-Tdr4As4TW1Bsd2oBlKWwBIslPFb58mQpddPXlXul_BQDj7UqBp4iNbzV56L8rHUkeAlWoXkUcyuIdvXQIgzSZTl9oVY/s1600/IMR+2015.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLwRVDd4Ur7fEGrbiObP6mh426j0NuAQzFVAQqsOniAYsVkXa-Tdr4As4TW1Bsd2oBlKWwBIslPFb58mQpddPXlXul_BQDj7UqBp4iNbzV56L8rHUkeAlWoXkUcyuIdvXQIgzSZTl9oVY/s320/IMR+2015.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Infant Mortality Rate by Cause:<br />
Source: <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db267.htm" target="_blank">CDC</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-57220581146463330032016-10-30T05:36:00.000-07:002016-10-30T05:36:01.484-07:00Halloween Fun<b>Happy Halloween!</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<b>Normal Distribution vs. Paranormal Distribution</b><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNwSge_A1P7AiK_nnV_h8ZWTKA_2Qw_1Xt9-93vTmpZNT3w-LeM2Zvpz0_0bmCPh7gAQ8uKXlCx6HiFweHdR71excYOd47e_3QvEiV4Q5LzVFUXsuOojRld_MeaRxDoQZ3ZngNcZbSPMg/s1600/normal+distribution+paranormal+distribution.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNwSge_A1P7AiK_nnV_h8ZWTKA_2Qw_1Xt9-93vTmpZNT3w-LeM2Zvpz0_0bmCPh7gAQ8uKXlCx6HiFweHdR71excYOd47e_3QvEiV4Q5LzVFUXsuOojRld_MeaRxDoQZ3ZngNcZbSPMg/s400/normal+distribution+paranormal+distribution.jpg" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2465539/" target="_blank">Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><br /></b>
<b>A BOOming INDUSTRY:</b><br />
<strong></strong><br />
There were an estimated 41.1 million potential trick-or-treaters (children age 5-14*) in the United States in 2015, roughly <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2015/10/scary-stats-for-halloween-2015.html" target="_blank">the same as in 2014</a>.<br />
<br />
But Halloween is clearly not just a children's holiday. 171 million Americans of all ages will be celebrating Halloween this year (up nearly 10% from last year), with total spending reaching more than $8.4 billion.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLh7n9_nwjnQBb128VNKJkgSPuXfp5oQr1TvVBqIpOXfq9k7JVIpry42-vmf6T8WLVZLLAUrj6cONGr5ljmVPBZnZ8ufh6u8_UKeNodrpNvWuBjbKKd7k64kNhGTUYD-tdgLKttvAa7U/s1600/20121027_101442.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLh7n9_nwjnQBb128VNKJkgSPuXfp5oQr1TvVBqIpOXfq9k7JVIpry42-vmf6T8WLVZLLAUrj6cONGr5ljmVPBZnZ8ufh6u8_UKeNodrpNvWuBjbKKd7k64kNhGTUYD-tdgLKttvAa7U/s320/20121027_101442.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The average American adult will spend $83 on decorations, costumes and candy, up considerably from <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2015/10/scary-stats-for-halloween-2015.html" target="_blank">$74 last year</a>, and above the previous peak of <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2012/10/freaky-facts-and-scary-stats-for.html" target="_blank">$80 per person in 2012</a>.<br />
<br />
For those who will dress up to celebrate the holiday:<br />
The most popular children's costume: Superhero! (knocking princess from the top spot after an 11-year reign).<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Sources: <a href="https://nrf.com/resources/consumer-data/halloween-headquarters" target="_blank">National Retail Federation</a> and </i></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2016/cb16-ff20.html" target="_blank">U.S. Census Bureau, Facts for Features</a></span></i><br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">*Note: Of course, many other children - older than 14, and younger than 5 - also go trick-or-treating.</span></i><b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>TERRIFYING TREATS:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW6IPtR4_X1-YeFHX1jbovGV3BMuFQHO1hPOah2a7M_GoeHQG9uwbBEiaIEhB92ufJQGXyc9JAFkxPtCC3Yf2GDHojcuEWIELzgpPD1oj0qxPQzQbOJelDkeJN1NyArNMO2u3OM1gIrKM/s1600/Snickers+Reeses+KitKat+Hersheys+candy+bars.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW6IPtR4_X1-YeFHX1jbovGV3BMuFQHO1hPOah2a7M_GoeHQG9uwbBEiaIEhB92ufJQGXyc9JAFkxPtCC3Yf2GDHojcuEWIELzgpPD1oj0qxPQzQbOJelDkeJN1NyArNMO2u3OM1gIrKM/s1600/Snickers+Reeses+KitKat+Hersheys+candy+bars.JPG" /></a>America's candy consumption in 2010 was nearly <b>25 pounds per person</b>. If this candy were entirely Snickers bars, it would be the equivalent of <a href="http://i-run-like-a-girl.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-much-candy.html">nearly 4 candy bars, per week, per person</a>. The volume of candy consumed, much like home prices, peaked in the middle of the decade, dipped at the start of the recession in 2008, and <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2012/10/freaky-facts-and-scary-stats-for.html" target="_blank">increased slowly each year since then</a>. Another scary fact is that 2010 is the last year for which we'll have this data. Budget cuts led to the <a href="http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/cir/historical_data/ma311d/index.html" target="_blank">termination of the Current Industrial Reporting program</a>.<br />
<br />
American confectionery manufacturers produce about 35 million pounds of candy corn each year. That adds up to 9 billion candy corns - or about 30 kernels per person in the U.S.<br />
<br />
For Halloween itself, Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy, spending nearly $2.6 billion for treats to hand out to trick-or-treaters.<br />
<br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sources: <a href="http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/cir/historical_data/ma311d/index.html" target="_blank">U.S. Census Bureau, Current Industrial Reports, Confectionery: 2010</a>; </span></i><i style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.candyusa.com/news/americans-stay-sweet-on-halloween-by-embracing-moderation/" target="_blank">National Confectioners Association</a>; </i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://dailyinfographic.com/candynomics-infographic" target="_blank">Daily Infographic 2011</a> and <a href="http://dailyinfographic.com/halloween-freakynomics-infographic" target="_blank">2012</a></span></i><br />
<br />B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-7743022522764512692016-06-03T05:37:00.000-07:002016-06-03T05:37:45.527-07:002015 data show historic low teen births, rising birth rate at older ages<i>Highlights from the preliminary 2015 birth data</i><br />
<br />
Teen and early 20-something births are at (another) all-time low in the U.S., and birth rates continue to rise at ages 30 and older.<br />
<br />
As a historical demographer, who has some experience with fertility and mortality rate trends over the past century (and <a href="http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/573.abstract" target="_blank">the century before</a>), and I can say with conviction that the trend is not really new. Birth rates for women ages 35 and older are not higher now than ever. They're not even higher now than they were in the 1950s and 1960s.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/nvsr.htm" target="_blank">National Vital Statistics Reports</a>, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provide historical birth rate data by age of mother as far back as 1970. Earlier data must be compiled from a variety of other sources including the older, and often PDF-scan-only <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/mvsr.htm" target="_blank">Monthly Vital Statistics Reports</a> and the <a href="http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1950-02.pdf" target="_blank">U.S. Statistical Abstract</a>.<br />
<br />
From those sources I collected data as far back as 1920, with complete annual data from 1935-present. The historical birth rates (births per 1,000 women) are shown in the chart below.<br />
<br />
<script src="https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br />
<div class="tableauPlaceholder" style="height: 742px; width: 654px;">
<noscript><a href='#'><img alt='Dashboard 1 ' src='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/Bi/BirthRatesbyAge2015/Dashboard1/1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a></noscript><object class="tableauViz" height="742" style="display: none;" width="654"><param name='host_url' value='https%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableau.com%2F' /> <param name='site_root' value='' /><param name='name' value='BirthRatesbyAge2015/Dashboard1' /><param name='tabs' value='no' /><param name='toolbar' value='yes' /><param name='static_image' value='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/Bi/BirthRatesbyAge2015/Dashboard1/1.png' /> <param name='animate_transition' value='yes' /><param name='display_static_image' value='yes' /><param name='display_spinner' value='yes' /><param name='display_overlay' value='yes' /><param name='display_count' value='yes' /><param name='showTabs' value='y' /></object></div>
<br />
Zeroing in on ages 35 and older, to show more detail on the chart scale, we see that birth rates are indeed higher in 2015 than they were in 1970. But we do not need to go back very much farther to find a time at which birth rates were higher than they are today: In the 1960s birth rates were higher for all ages 35-49 than they were in 2015.<br />
<br />
If we go as far back as 1920, birth rates were nearly five times higher for women ages 45-49 than in 2015, nearly three times higher for ages 40-44, and fifty percent higher for ages 35-39 than they are at present.<br />
<br />
In short, the phenomenon of increasing birth rates for women in their 30s and 40s is as much a return to historical patterns as a deviation from them.<br />
<br />
To be clear, some pregnancy risks do increase with advanced maternal age:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>older age strongly increases a woman's chances of at least three untoward outcomes—namely, stillbirth, miscarriage, and ectopic pregnancy</i>" (Stein and Susser 2000)</blockquote>
However, there is considerable evidence that socio-economic factors play the most important role in birth outcome - perhaps far outweighing the age effects (<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/poverty-poses-a-bigger-risk-to-pregnancy-than-age/266348/" target="_blank">Cohen 2012</a>, <a href="http://www.academicjournals.org/ijmms/PDF/Pdf2011/21November/Azimi%20and%20Lotfi.pdf" target="_blank">Azimi and Lotfi 2011</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127459/" target="_blank">Stein and Susser 2000</a>).<br />
<br />
As for the current focus on trends in the past four decades, I suspect the ease of collecting data from 1970-present is partly the cause of the focus on a "huge" increase in childbearing at older ages... when, in reality, rates have fallen if you look back just 5 years more.<br />
<br />
<i>I am happy to share the raw data upon request. Feel free to <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/p/contact.html" target="_blank">contact me</a> for more information.</i>B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-20421810078259528872016-06-01T06:05:00.000-07:002016-06-03T06:06:55.636-07:00Demography of the 2016 Hurricane SeasonThe 2016 north Atlantic hurricane season has begun...<br />
<br />
The coastline from Texas to North Carolina is most at risk of a hurricane, and in those states, the population of coastal counties is <a href="http://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2016/cb16-ff10.html" target="_blank">27 million</a>.<br />
<br />
Hurricanes occasionally strike farther north, but despite <a href="http://www.fema.gov/hurricane-sandy" target="_blank">hurricane Sandy's damage</a> in 2012, such events are considerably less common than hurricanes in the southern states. Yet that does not make the damage any less catastropic. Early estimates place the damage from Hurricane Sandy at about <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/hurricane-sandy-vs-hurricane-katrina/" target="_blank">400,000 housing units damaged or destroyed</a>, the majority of which were in New York (more than 300,000), New Jersey (approximately 70,000), and Connecticut (approximately 3,000).<br />
<br />
While Sandy was more recent, and turned the lights off for more people, hurricane Katrina left more fatalities and damaged homes in her wake.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.huduser.org/Publications/pdf/Housing_Recovery_in_the_Gulf_Coast_PhaseI_v2.pdf">Department of Housing and Urban Development</a> estimates that in the summer of 2005 hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma damaged "more than one million housing units across five states." Of the damaged homes 515,000 were in Louisiana, 220,000 in Mississippi, and nearly 140,000 in Texas.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
A full five years later, nearly 15 percent of the properties still had substantial visible repair needs, and 11 percent no longer contained a permanent residential structure. In other words, more than one quarter of the homes damaged in the 2005 hurricane season were either completely lost or were still in need of repair five years later.<br />
<br />
<b>State of Preparedness</b><br />
While more than 80 percent of homes in the U.S. have a food supply sufficient for at least 3 days, <a href="http://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2016/cb16-ff10.html" target="_blank">only about half have a water supply in the event of an emergency</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Mapping Tools</b><br />
The Bureau of Labor statistics now has an online hurricane mapper tool that provides wage,employment, and establishment data for potential flood zones.<br />
Info at:<br />
<a href="http://www.bls.gov/cew/hurricane_zones/home.htm" target="_blank">http://www.bls.gov/cew/hurricane_zones/home.htm</a><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-35891681414774581252016-05-20T06:57:00.001-07:002016-06-08T12:27:18.076-07:00MilestoneThanks to Nathan Yau of <a href="http://flowingdata.com/2016/05/10/who-is-older-and-younger-than-you/" target="_blank">Flowing Data</a> and Carolina Demography's Twitter, I learned this morning that I've passed a milestone I hadn't thought of.
I'm older than half the population in the U.S.<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Between 37-38, you become older than the majority of Americans.<a href="https://twitter.com/flowingdata">@flowingdata</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/dataviz?src=hash">#dataviz</a> <a href="https://t.co/nZVAWqYE3y">https://t.co/nZVAWqYE3y</a> <a href="https://t.co/sgcygYaW8w">pic.twitter.com/sgcygYaW8w</a></div>
— Carolina Demography (@ncdemography) <a href="https://twitter.com/ncdemography/status/733639926156132355">May 20, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-71254173364135183462016-04-08T07:41:00.000-07:002016-04-08T07:41:28.994-07:00Update: Births to "Older" Mothers Still Not News<i>This is an update of a post that originally appeared here in February 2013.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Sometimes "common knowledge" is not knowledge at all...</i><br />
<br />
There has been considerable hand-wringing in the press over births to women over the age of 35. According to the Telegraph, older mothers are "<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9850091/Older-mothers-driving-up-birth-defect-rate.html" target="_blank">driving up the birth defect rate</a>." The New Republic suggests that older parents will "<a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/magazine/110861/how-older-parenthood-will-upend-american-society#" target="_blank">upend American society</a>." And Slate, generally progressive, bemoans the "<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/roiphe/2012/12/older_parents_are_fertility_treatments_a_good_idea.html" target="_blank">feminist fertility myth</a>."<br />
<br />
As a demographer, I am aware that birth rates in age groups 35-39, 40-44, and 45+ have been rising since the late 1970s for ages 35-39 and 45+, and since the early 1980s for the 40-44 set.<br />
<br />
But as the granddaughter of a woman who birthed her youngest child when she was nearly forty, my skeptic antennae went up. My grandmother may have been a singular woman, but she was hardly a statistical aberration.<br />
<br />
As a historical demographer, who has some experience with fertility and mortality rate trends over the past century (and <a href="http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/573.abstract" target="_blank">the century before</a>), and I can say with conviction that the trend is not really new. Birth rates for women ages 35 and older are not higher now than ever. They're not even higher now than they were in the 1950s and 1960s.<br />
<br />
<script src="https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br />
<div class="tableauPlaceholder" style="height: 742px; width: 654px;">
<noscript><a href='#'><img alt='Dashboard 1 ' src='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/Bi/BirthRatesbyAge/Dashboard1/1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a></noscript><object class="tableauViz" height="742" style="display: none;" width="654"><param name='host_url' value='https%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableau.com%2F' /> <param name='site_root' value='' /><param name='name' value='BirthRatesbyAge/Dashboard1' /><param name='tabs' value='no' /><param name='toolbar' value='yes' /><param name='static_image' value='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/Bi/BirthRatesbyAge/Dashboard1/1.png' /> <param name='animate_transition' value='yes' /><param name='display_static_image' value='yes' /><param name='display_spinner' value='yes' /><param name='display_overlay' value='yes' /><param name='display_count' value='yes' /><param name='showTabs' value='y' /></object></div>
<br />
The <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/nvsr.htm" target="_blank">National Vital Statistics Reports</a>, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provide historical birth rate data by age of mother as far back as 1970. Earlier data must be compiled from a variety of other sources including the older, and often PDF-scan-only <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/mvsr.htm" target="_blank">Monthly Vital Statistics Reports</a> and the <a href="http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1950-02.pdf" target="_blank">U.S. Statistical Abstract</a>.<br />
<br />
From those sources I collected data as far back as 1920, with complete annual data from 1935-2010 (the most recent year for which complete data are available). The historical birth rates (births per 1,000 women) are shown in the chart below.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Zeroing in on ages 35 and older, to show more detail on the chart scale, we see that birth rates are indeed higher in 2010 than they were in 1970. Specifically, birth rates are 45% higher for ages 35-39, 26% higher for 40-44, and 40% higher for ages 45-49 in 2010 than in 1970.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
But we do not need to go back very much farther to find a time at which birth rates were higher than they are today: In 1965 birth rates were higher for all ages 35-49 than they were in 2010.<br />
<br />
If we go as far back as 1920, birth rates were nearly twice as high for ages 35-39, were three times higher for 40-44 year olds, and were more than 5 times higher for ages 45-49 than the rates in 2010.<br />
<br />
In short, the phenomenon of increasing birth rates for women in their late 30s and 40s is as much a return to historical patterns as a deviation from them.<br />
<br />
To be clear, some pregnancy risks do increase with advanced maternal age:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>older age strongly increases a woman's chances of at least three untoward outcomes—namely, stillbirth, miscarriage, and ectopic pregnancy</i>" (Stein and Susser 2000)</blockquote>
However, there is considerable evidence that socio-economic factors play the most important role in birth outcome - perhaps far outweighing the age effects (<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/poverty-poses-a-bigger-risk-to-pregnancy-than-age/266348/" target="_blank">Cohen 2012</a>, <a href="http://www.academicjournals.org/ijmms/PDF/Pdf2011/21November/Azimi%20and%20Lotfi.pdf" target="_blank">Azimi and Lotfi 2011</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127459/" target="_blank">Stein and Susser 2000</a>).<br />
<br />
As for the current focus on trends in the past four decades, I suspect the ease of collecting data from 1970-present is partly the cause of the focus on a "huge" increase in childbearing at older ages... when, in reality, rates have fallen if you look back just 5 years more.<br />
<br />
<i>I am happy to share the raw data upon request. Feel free to <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/p/contact.html" target="_blank">contact me</a> for more information.</i>B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310328250875843192.post-62904303376917916722015-10-30T06:21:00.001-07:002015-10-30T06:21:10.431-07:00Scary stats for Halloween 2015<b>A BOOming INDUSTRY:</b><br />
<strong></strong><br />
There were an estimated 41.2 million potential trick-or-treaters (children age 5-14*) in the United States in 2014, <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2014/10/freaky-facts-and-scary-stats-for.html" target="_blank">unchanged from 2013</a>.<br />
<br />
But Halloween is clearly not just a children's holiday. 157 million Americans of all ages will be celebrating Halloween this year, with total spending reaching nearly $7 billion.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLh7n9_nwjnQBb128VNKJkgSPuXfp5oQr1TvVBqIpOXfq9k7JVIpry42-vmf6T8WLVZLLAUrj6cONGr5ljmVPBZnZ8ufh6u8_UKeNodrpNvWuBjbKKd7k64kNhGTUYD-tdgLKttvAa7U/s1600/20121027_101442.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLh7n9_nwjnQBb128VNKJkgSPuXfp5oQr1TvVBqIpOXfq9k7JVIpry42-vmf6T8WLVZLLAUrj6cONGr5ljmVPBZnZ8ufh6u8_UKeNodrpNvWuBjbKKd7k64kNhGTUYD-tdgLKttvAa7U/s320/20121027_101442.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The average American adult will spend $74 on decorations, costumes and candy, down a bit from <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2014/10/freaky-facts-and-scary-stats-for.html" target="_blank">$78 last year</a>, and well below the peak of <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2012/10/freaky-facts-and-scary-stats-for.html" target="_blank">$80 per person in 2012</a>.<br />
<br />
For those who will dress up to celebrate the holiday:<br />
The most popular children's costume: Princess.<br />
The most popular adult costume: Witch.<br />
<i>Should we read anything into that dichotomy?</i><br />
<br />
The breakout costume star of 2015 is... "Star Wars character," which didn't crack the top 10 <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2014_10_01_archive.html" target="_blank">last year</a>, but ranks 5th this year.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Sources: <a href="https://nrf.com/resources/halloween-headquarters" target="_blank">National Retail Federation</a> and </i></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2015/cb15-ff21.html" target="_blank">U.S. Census Bureau, Facts for Features</a></span></i><br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">*Note: Of course, many other children - older than 14, and younger than 5 - also go trick-or-treating.</span></i><b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>TERRIFYING TREATS:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW6IPtR4_X1-YeFHX1jbovGV3BMuFQHO1hPOah2a7M_GoeHQG9uwbBEiaIEhB92ufJQGXyc9JAFkxPtCC3Yf2GDHojcuEWIELzgpPD1oj0qxPQzQbOJelDkeJN1NyArNMO2u3OM1gIrKM/s1600/Snickers+Reeses+KitKat+Hersheys+candy+bars.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW6IPtR4_X1-YeFHX1jbovGV3BMuFQHO1hPOah2a7M_GoeHQG9uwbBEiaIEhB92ufJQGXyc9JAFkxPtCC3Yf2GDHojcuEWIELzgpPD1oj0qxPQzQbOJelDkeJN1NyArNMO2u3OM1gIrKM/s1600/Snickers+Reeses+KitKat+Hersheys+candy+bars.JPG" /></a>America's candy consumption in 2010 was nearly <b>25 pounds per person</b>. If this candy were entirely Snickers bars, it would be the equivalent of <a href="http://i-run-like-a-girl.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-much-candy.html">nearly 4 candy bars, per week, per person</a>. The volume of candy consumed, much like home prices, peaked in the middle of the decade, dipped at the start of the recession in 2008, and <a href="http://data-insights.blogspot.com/2012/10/freaky-facts-and-scary-stats-for.html" target="_blank">increased slowly each year since then</a>. Another scary fact is that 2010 is the last year for which we'll have this data. Budget cuts led to the <a href="http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/cir/historical_data/ma311d/index.html" target="_blank">termination of the Current Industrial Reporting program</a>.<br />
<br />
American confectionery manufacturers produce about 35 million pounds of candy corn each year. That adds up to 9 billion candy corns - or about 30 kernels per person in the U.S.<br />
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For Halloween itself, Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy, spending nearly $2.6 billion for treats to hand out to trick-or-treaters.<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sources: <a href="http://www.census.gov/manufacturing/cir/historical_data/ma311d/index.html" target="_blank">U.S. Census Bureau, Current Industrial Reports, Confectionery: 2010</a>; </span></i><i style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.candyusa.com/news/americans-stay-sweet-on-halloween-by-embracing-moderation/" target="_blank">National Confectioners Association</a>; </i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://dailyinfographic.com/candynomics-infographic" target="_blank">Daily Infographic 2011</a> and <a href="http://dailyinfographic.com/halloween-freakynomics-infographic" target="_blank">2012</a></span></i><br />
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<strong>HOME PRICE PREMIUM NEAR FINAL RESTING PLACE</strong><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDjxGk8t9is2UnboVh9dIdzjM5fsExOK7IYYpjK98N9uwUjHLFKdD-Ftqe3hBahMIz_c8a9Ul36F3MX2jJyF2Ac38tKuPf4KOEBaq7yIHlM2FeCgC6f0M1EPpb3f2vWfRYwDzYPTBliA8/s1600/4+Graveyard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDjxGk8t9is2UnboVh9dIdzjM5fsExOK7IYYpjK98N9uwUjHLFKdD-Ftqe3hBahMIz_c8a9Ul36F3MX2jJyF2Ac38tKuPf4KOEBaq7yIHlM2FeCgC6f0M1EPpb3f2vWfRYwDzYPTBliA8/s320/4+Graveyard.jpg" width="320" /></a>According to Redfin (and contrary to what one might guess) <a href="http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/10/i-see-dead-people-do-homes-near-cemeteries-sell-well.html#.UnJrsiSoVYj" target="_blank">homes near cemeteries sell for <strong><em>more</em></strong>, per square foot</a>, than homes not near cemeteries.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<em>Redfin analyzed the price of homes less than 50 feet from a cemetery, and compared those to the price of homes less than 100, 200, 500 and 1,000 yards away. The numbers indicate that on average, homes near cemeteries are slightly smaller, but sell for more per square foot. On average, homes closest to cemeteries sold for $162 dollars per square foot, whereas the homes located more than 500 yards away sold for $145 per square foot.</em>"</blockquote>
But these homes were on the market for longer than their non-cemetery peers...<br />
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<b>IN THE PUMPKIN PATCH:</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjE5O4CaD8TT2_k4vuP-SYxyUCv6qudyVQ8X07ss0XYnX48oAQJVwOsep8JmpYyhT-eA71naeksKHq9cyLKg6B5o_Wl1lVnvzVmhNUj6hP1_D2WJvEHyHuybHODqBD8O0u-N397-h-f64/s1600/069.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjE5O4CaD8TT2_k4vuP-SYxyUCv6qudyVQ8X07ss0XYnX48oAQJVwOsep8JmpYyhT-eA71naeksKHq9cyLKg6B5o_Wl1lVnvzVmhNUj6hP1_D2WJvEHyHuybHODqBD8O0u-N397-h-f64/s320/069.JPG" width="240" /></a>U.S. pumpkin production totaled 1.3 billion pounds in 2014, with a value of $145 million. In that year 50,900 acres of farmland were harvested for pumpkins. Those figures are likely to drop in 2015 as bad weather resulted in <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/09/news/companies/pumpkin-shortage/" target="_blank">pumpkin crop losses</a>.<br />
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Six states are pumpkin hotspots: Illinois, California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan each accounted for more than 100 million pounds of pumpkins grown in 2010.<br />
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Canadian farmers grew more than 64,700 tonnes of pumpkins, valued at $23.2 million.<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Sources: USDA <a href="http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_Subject/result.php?588F9E65-417A-3A62-A995-4E2E189FFDCB&sector=CROPS&group=VEGETABLES&comm=PUMPKINS" target="_blank">National Agricultural Statistics</a> </span></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">and Statistics Canada <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/halloween-by-the-numbers-and-1-fun-fact-1.3292516" target="_blank">Hallowe’en... by the numbers</a></span></i><br />
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<br />B. Jaroszhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01158510806356052260noreply@blogger.com0