October 13, 2014

Stat of the Week Competition: October 11 – 17 2014

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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 October 17 2014.
  • Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
  • The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of October 11 – 17 2014 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.
  • Individual posts on Stats Chat are just the opinions of their authors, who can criticise anyone who they feel deserves it, but the Stat of the Week award involves the Department of Statistics more officially. For that reason, we will not award Stat of the Week for a statistic coming from anyone at the University of Auckland outside the Statistics department. You can still nominate and discuss them, but the nomination won’t be eligible for the prize.
  • 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.
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Rachel Cunliffe is the co-director of CensusAtSchool and currently consults for the Department of Statistics. Her interests include statistical literacy, social media and blogging. See all posts by Rachel Cunliffe »

Nominations

  • avatar
    Ben Brooks

    Statistic: Not so much a statistic but…

    A report in the Herald on a study of coroners reports suggests more could be done to prevent older people committing suicide because most who do had visited a Dr in the month beforehand.

    But, according to StatsNZ in 2011 (the study covers 2007 to 2012) there were roughly 580,000 people 65+. I couldn’t find any figures, but assuming they visit the Dr every other year (which seems a conservative estimate) that’s 290,000 visits per annum. Rounding up, there were an average of 30 visits per annum that were followed by suicide.
    Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11343998
    Date: 17 October 2014

    Trying to do something about suicide is important, but the suggestion that ‘visit to a dr’ is a useful intervention point is a bit naive.

    10 years ago