science, evidence and data in government presentation

Science, evidence and data in government

Sir Mark Walport, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government

2 Science, evidence and data in government, 3rd September 2013

Sir Harry Campion

• First director of the Central Statistical Office, forerunner to the current ONS. Was director from 1941 until his retirement in 1967 • Helped to organise the creation of the United Nations Statistical Office in 1946

• President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1957 to 1959. In 1996 left a bequest, with money going to the Campion Fellowship and the RSS Historical Fund

• Other posts included President of the International Statistical Institute and Vice-President of the Manchester Statistical Society (1905 – 1996)

© National Portrait Gallery

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• Knowledge translated to economic advantage

• Wellbeing, health & resilience – infrastructure

• The right science for emergencies

• Underpinning policy with evidence

• Advocacy and leadership for science

Government Office for Science

Science, evidence and data in government, 3rd September 2013

© iStockPhoto

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1. Aging, cities, demography

2. Energy, climate change and the natural environment

3. The economy, the City, the world in trade

4. Manufacturing, materials science, innovation

5. Data, infrastructure, identity

6. Principles of government decision-making: risk, resilience, contingency

Themes of GO-Science work

All activities need to be underpinned by evidence, analysis and data


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Bringing a multidisciplinary approach to the challenges facing government

Dave Ramsden

1,350 Economists

Tony O’Connor

450 Operational Researchers

Jil Matheson

1,600 Statisticians

Jenny Dibden

950 Social Researchers

Mark Walport

12,000 Scientists & Engineers



A network of Chief Scientific Advisers

Prof Chris Whitty

DFID

Prof DameSally Davies

DH

Prof Robin Grimes FCO

Carole WillisDfE

Prof John Perkins

BIS

Prof David MackayDECC

Prof Rod SmithDfT

Dr Bill Gunnyeon

DWP

Dr James Richardson

HMT

Prof Bernard Silverman

Home Office

Prof Peter Freer Smith Forestry C.

Dr Andrew Wadge

FSA

Rebecca Endean

MoJ

Dr David Bench HSE

Prof Julia Slingo Met Office

Prof Vernon GibsonMOD

Prof Ian Boyd DEFRA

Prof Bernadette HanniganNI Interim CSA

Prof Muffy Calder Scotland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bernard_Silverman.jpg

• Data• Information• Knowledge• Application

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From data to knowledge to society


GrowthResiliencePolicy &

service

delivery

Societal Benefit


Vemurafenib – oral targeted therapy for treatment of metastatic malignant melanoma in patients whose tumors carry the BRAFV600E mutation. Approximately 60% of melanoma patients have tumors that carry this mutation

From data to knowledge to society

© Plexxikon Inc

• Defining & refining the question

• Data collection• Analysis• Visualisation• Inference

Information

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From data to information using statistics


Application of Statistics at all levels

Communication

• Science is about asking questions

• New techniques allow us to ask new questions

• New ways of collecting data allow us to ask new questions

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Defining & refining the question


© iStockPhoto


• One of the oldest continuous agronomic experiments in the world – started in 1843

Old ways of collecting data

Herbicides and fertilisers Herbicides but no fertilisers No herbicides

Rothamsted’s Broadbalk Winter Wheat Experiment

http://www.era.rothamsted.ac.uk/metadata/broad/Broadbalk_Yields_Chart.pdf

• Data is being collected in different ways

• Users submit photos and locations of sightings to a team who refer them on to the Forestry Commission, which is leading efforts to stop the disease's spread with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)

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Chalara spread: 1992-2012

New ways of collecting data


https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/ashtag/id574320875?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo=4

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• Developed by Boston's Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics

Built environment

• Street Bump uses crowd sourcing to improve neighbourhood streets by collecting road condition data while they drive

• Utilises two of the phone’s sensors, its accelerometer and GPS. The sensors detect “bumps” that the City maps


https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/ashtag/id574320875?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo=4

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Long-term climate data


mean (1961-1990)

= 0

Source: Met Office Hadley Centre (2013)

Global historical surface temperature anomalies

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New technology – gigantic scale


© Crown copyright Met Office

From data from observations

To forecasting winds, rainfall,

temperature

Geoposition data


Source: Sir Stuart Peach, Cambridge Conference 2013

Tactical level analysis: Ditch & Flow in Helmand

Tribal Distributions

Population density

Population movements

Terrain Elevation Data

Topographic Data

Combined Operating Picture

Oceanographic Data

Hydrographic Data

Meteorological Data

Aeronautical Data

Geodetic Data

CrawlStalkWalk

Analysing big data

• Total Scottish Population 5.2M

• People with diabetes : 251,132 (4.9%)

• People with Type 1 DM : ~27,000 (0.5%)

• All patients nationally are registered onto a single register; the SCI-DC register

• SCI-DC used in all 38 hospitals

• Nightly capture of data from all 1043 primary care practices across Scotland

Courtesy of Andrew Morris


Harnessing ICT: A national diabetes system for Scotland

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Percen

tage o

f Patien

ts Data recorded within the previous 15 months

http://www.diabetesinscotland.org.uk/Publications/SDS%202010.pdf


Scottish Diabetes Survey – over 90% capture of key variables since 2007

Recording of Key Biomedical Markers


Accountability of services

Diabetes Care 2008Diabetic Medicine 2009


Improved clinical outcomes



Demography

Future of Demographic Change project:

• A growing population

• An ageing population

• Local variation at all scales

• Increasing diversity

• Demographic changes will have an impact

Graphic by The Guardian, 2010. Source data: ONS, Population by Local Authority, 2010

UK population change 1999-2009 by local authority

Polar area diagram by Florence Nightingale illustrating causes of mortality during the Crimean War (1857)


Turning data into information

The UK may be considered to be a small emitter compared to some other countries

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Source: The Carbon Map

Tonnes CO2 per capita


Visualising emissions data

But looking at historical emissions tells a different story

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Source: The Carbon Map

Tonnes CO2 per capita


Visualising emissions data

Source: gapminder.org

Visualising data – Hans Rosling


1.Communication and misuse

2. Privacy

3. Skills


Challenges

AndyHedges / CC BY-SA 3.0


• Need for us all to be clear in communicating

• Especially where:-- the science or statistics are complicated- there are uncertainties- big press interest- emergency situation

• Direct language and clear diagrams – but without losing the nuances

Communication: uncertainty and getting our message across


• ‘Cone of uncertainty’ diagram – line shows most likely path of hurricane and the uncertainty displayed by the white region indicating a 2 in 3 chance of containing the path

• But the most likely path provides false sense of security to people living away from the black line

• For Hurricane Irene in 2011 a ‘spaghetti plot’ of possible paths were shown on TV, each path arising from a different forecasting model

• Communicates uncertainty of the path better than the ‘cone of uncertainty’

Communication: uncertainty and getting our message across

High emissions scenarios project warming of around 4°C by the end of the century, strong

mitigation scenarios limit this to 2°C

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• Even in the strong mitigation scenario we are still committed to further climate change for the next 2 to 3 decades, due to inertia in the climate system

• How much the climate warms after mid-century depends on how long global action on mitigation is delayed


Uncertainty of predictions

Risk vs Hazard

RadiationDosageChart

Sources:InformationisBeautiful.netBBC, Guardian Datablog, Mayo Clinicdata: bit.ly/radiationchart

Micro-Sievert (µSv)

0.1 µSv

1.0 µSv

10 µSv

100 µSv

1000 µSv

0.1 – Eating a banana

0.4 – Natural radiation in human body

40 – Flight from New York to LA

70 – Living in a stone, brick or concrete building for a year

100 – Chest X-ray

250 – Release limit for a nuclear power plant for a year

400 – Yearly dose per person from food per year

1000 – EPA yearly limit on radiation exposure to member of public

1.0 – Using CRT monitor for a year

3.5 – Extra dose from one day in average town near the Fukushima plant

5.0 – Dental X-ray

10 – Background dose received by average person on an average day



Source: http://understandinguncertainty.org/micromorts

Risk communication – Micromort

• Comparing small lethal risks (acute risks) difficult

• Micromort: 1 in a million chance of death

• Translates risk into easily comparable units

Walk

Cycle

Motor bike

Car

Micromorts per 100 miles travelled


• There are many “publics”

• Public values play a key part in how people respond

• Predictable “fright factors” – feelings of lack of control e.g. multinational companies’ monopoly of a new technology

• Need to build “trust” (impartiality/credibility of the commentator)

• Acknowledge and respect the “feelings” of those responding

Communication: understand your audience

Public values on energy

Summary of core public values on energy system change

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Source: UKERC Transforming the UK Energy System: Public Values, Attitudes and Acceptability

• 73% of respondents agree Britain should reduce energy use

• 79% of respondents say UK should reduce use of fossil fuels. Predominant reason was unsustainable nature of fossil fuels and environmental harm

• 83% of respondents are fairly or very concerned that in the next 10-20 years electricity and gas will become unaffordable for them


• To understand public preferences need to understand public values

• Public preferences change with context, but values and principles guide decisions and engagement


Misuse of statistics: Visualising data not propaganda

• Figures are factually correct

• But infographic is misleading

• From the North South Wales Ministry of Health, March 2013

Source: Guardian Data Blog


Misuse of statistics: safeguards

• The UK Statistics Authority – Whitehall’s statistics watchdog

• Chairman Andrew Dilnot can comment on perceived misuse of official statistics

• Groups such as Straight Statistics, Sense About Science and online blogs (e.g. Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science) now work to highlight misuse of evidence

• Promoting a culture of open access and providing links to referenced studies will allow for people to scrutinise the statistics

• Improving the accessibility of the ONS website

• Improve mathematics and statistics in education (as suggested in the 2012 CST letter on STEM Education)

http://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/

http://straightstatistics.org/

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• Personal information is individual & precious to each one of us – it’s vital that we treat it properly

• A balancing act…between the right to privacy and the necessity to hold and share data

• A framework is needed:

- to protect individuals

- build & maintain confidence

- facilitate research

Privacy


Wellcome / BY-NC-ND 2.0


Skills pipeline

Source: DfE

Mathematics teacher recruitment shortfall/surplus

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CST work: The Age of Algorithms

Schools Universities Jobs

• Recruit more teachers trained in computer science

• Embrace Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

• Incorporate logic, algorithms and statistics into post-16 mathematics courses

• Government should sponsor new Computer Literacy Campaign highlighting learning opportunities for individuals, schools and businesses

• Cooperation between computer science departments and private sector to develop multidisciplinary courses for practical application of data science

• Create a National Centre to promote advanced research and translational work in algorithms and application of data science


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We all need to work together


Universities Industry

http://www.raeng.org.uk/default.htm

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How can we help each other


Central Intelligence Agency

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. We apologise for any errors or omissions in the included attributions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future versions of this slide set. We can be contacted through [email protected] .

Science, evidence and data in government

Presentation made to the Royal Statistical Society annual conference,September 2013

Sir Mark Walport, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government

science, evidence and data in government presentation

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