Covid-19 Shows Why We Need Civic Statistics: Illustrations and Classroom Activities

Jim Ridgway () and Rosie Ridgway ()
Additional contact information
Jim Ridgway: University of Durham
Rosie Ridgway: University of Durham

Chapter Chapter 12 in Statistics for Empowerment and Social Engagement, 2022, pp 297-319 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract There are few better examples than a pandemicPandemic to demonstrate the importance of, and need for, Civic Statistics. Every country affected by Covid-19Covid-19 faces the threat of widespread deaths, economic damage, and social disruption. Citizens and governments need to take account of existing and emerging evidence, in order to decide on effective action. In most cases, governments need to create mechanisms to gather more evidence relevant to decision making, such as the incidence, rate of growth, and nature of the disease. For measures to be effective in democratic societies, governments need to give transparent and convincing explanations for their decisions. This puts high demands on skills associated with communicating statistical evidence on the side of governments and media, and a citizenry able to understand statistical messages. Evidence associated with Covid-19 covers the full spectrum of the features of Civic Statistics described by Engel and Ridgway in Chap. 2 . Skills needed to understand and act on evidence cover the complete set of skills set out by Gal, Nicholson and Ridgway in Chap. 3 . Here, we illustrate these features, point to requisite skills, and suggest some activities for students.

Keywords: Covid-19; Modelling; Risk; Causality; Plausible estimation; SEIR (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-20748-8_12

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031207488

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-20748-8_12

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().