December 19, 2011
Stat of the Week Competition: December 17-23 2011
Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.
Here’s how it works:
- Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday December 23 2011.
- Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
- The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of December 17-23 2011 inclusive.
- Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.
Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.
The fine print:
- Judging will be conducted by the blog moderator in liaison with staff at the Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland.
- The judges’ decision will be final.
- The judges can decide not to award a prize if they do not believe a suitable statistic has been posted in the preceeding week.
- Only the first nomination of any individual example of a statistic used in the NZ media will qualify for the competition.
- Employees (other than student employees) of the Statistics department at the University of Auckland are not eligible to win.
- The person posting the winning entry will receive a $20 iTunes voucher.
- The blog moderator will contact the winner via their notified email address and advise the details of the $20 iTunes voucher to that same email address.
- The competition will commence Monday 8 August 2011 and continue until cancellation is notified on the blog.
Statistic: One in five women aged 45 has no children, new figures show, putting childlessness for women born in 1965 at a 45-year-high.
Source: NZ Herald
Date: 17 Dec 2011
I would have thought that childlessness for women born in 1965 would have been around 100% in 1966.
In contrast 45 year old women (in the UK at least) have a current childlessness rate of around 20%, which I suspect would put childlessness for women born in 1965 at a 45-year-low.
12 years ago
Statistic: Be wary of ham this Christmas: ACC
ACC released figures on Tuesday showing the cost of treatment, rehabilitation and compensation for accidents recorded last Christmas Day have topped $1.9 million.
That includes several claims for ham-related injuries – including carving mishaps and burns, neck and knee strains from carrying heavy hams, and even a crushed finger after a ham toppled from a stand.
Most of the 3040 Christmas Day injuries accepted by ACC resulted from outdoor activities – including frisbee, fishing, slippery sliding, trampolining and poolside antics.
Source: MSN NZ news
Date: 20th December 2011
Oh no! The killer ham!
Now, it says here that the cost of treatment, rehabilitation etc for accidents recorded on Christmas Day was 1.9 million. According to the ACC website, in the 2007/08 year, they spent $2.72 billion on claims.
Now if we assume that this figure hasn’t changed, (which most likely it’s actually increased), then this puts total spent on claims from one day on about an average of $7.4 million.
Yes, some of these people may have ongoing costs which may not have been factored in yet, but still, I don’t think they have any evidence to justify blaming ham.
Now, if we look at the number of people who lodged a claim on Christmas day: this was 3040.
In the 07/08 financial year there was 1.8 million claims, an average of around 5000 a day.
Telling people to look out over the Christmas period and take care is good, but from this, it would appear that actually, Christmas day has less, if not accidents, claims than the average day.
12 years ago
Statistic: Nuns on the Pill
Source: MacDoctor blog
Date: 21 December 2011
The MacDoctor is a pretty savvy statistician and he debunks the Lancet paper on the “hazards of nulliparity.”
The Lancet says that nuns should be allowed to go on the pill because it reduces the risks of certain cancers.
MacDoctor shows in several ways how the argument fails. An interesting read with interesting insights such as “we know that the pill reduces mortality for women overall, but that is because taking the pill is much safer than having babies.”
In case you were wondering nulliparity means “not having any children.”
12 years ago
[…] to Sonia Polak for her winning nomination the “killer ham” statistic of the […]
12 years ago
Statistic: ‘It ain’t over’, port union warns
Source: NZ herald
Date: 07/03/2012
The NZ herald poll was not designed well.
Apart from selection bias, readers do not have enough options to select.
Personally, i think the workers are in the worst position. But Aucklanders tend to blame workers rather than the union’s leaders…
so the options should be uinon or poa, then neither side or else
12 years ago