How do we estimate event rates for geohazards like earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, when human records of such events are incomplete? This is a question Barnett Award winner Jonathan Rougier explores in the February 2022 issue of Significance, out now in digital formats.
Rougier is joined in this issue by COPSS leadership academy winner and data privacy expert Claire McKay Bowen, who provides an illustrated guide to methods of statistical disclosure control used by US federal statistical agencies to protect the privacy of individuals.
In our 'StatsComm' section, Sandra Alba looks at how journalism has borrowed tools from epidemiology in its reporting of Covid-19, while Florence Gabriel provides an introduction to the problem of 'maths anxiety' and shares ideas for how to overcome it.
Also in the February issue:
- Suzanne Thornton, Dooti Roy, Stephen Parry, Donna LaLonde, Wendy Martinez, Renee Ellis and David Corliss call for a more inclusive — and informative — approach to collecting data on human gender and sex.
- James Alan Fox, Nathan E Sanders, Emma E. Fridel, Grant Duwe and Michael Rocque ask whether media coverage of mass public shootings leads to a short-term increase in the probability of additional shootings.
- And Significance speaks to Steve MacFeely, director of data and analytics at the World Health Organization, about the difficulties of measuring the direct and indirect effects of Covid, disruptions and innovations within national statistical systems, and his hopes — and fears — for the future.
RSS members can access the digital version of Significance, along with an online copy of this issue's Member Update, through MyRSS. Members can also download and read the magazine on the go with our iOS and Android apps. Print issues will be mailed to subscribers soon.
Significance is online at www.significancemagazine.com.