Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice: The First 60 Years and Beyond

Shelley Hurwitz and John S. Gardenier

The American Statistician, 2012, vol. 66, issue 2, 99-103

Abstract: The Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice of the American Statistical Association (ASA) have evolved over a span of more than 60 years, going back to 1949. The Interim version of the Guidelines was published in 1980, the Trial version was published in 1983 and revised and formalized in 1989, the current version was approved by the Board of Directors and made available on the ASA's Web site in 1999, and ASA accreditation now requires statistical practitioners to agree to abide by them. The new century brings new ethical concerns for statisticians. As examples, bioethics is booming, climate science is newsworthy for both science and ethics, and issues of statistical integrity in research keeps the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity very busy. In this century, we see a rapid increase in the ability to collect massive amounts of data, with complex structure and a sometimes sensitive nature. With these unparalleled opportunities for statisticians comes an increased need for clear guidelines on professional ethics. The evolution of the Guidelines therefore needs to continue. In this article, we examine the long history of the ASA Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice, and discuss potential areas for revision to meet the needs of our expanding profession.

Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00031305.2012.695959 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:amstat:v:66:y:2012:i:2:p:99-103

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/UTAS20

DOI: 10.1080/00031305.2012.695959

Access Statistics for this article

The American Statistician is currently edited by Eric Sampson

More articles in The American Statistician from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().