About:
The next KE Hub online Triage Workshop will be presented by Office for National Statistics.
Reliable confidence intervals for proportions in the UK Annual Population Survey
The ONS compiles the Annual Population Survey (APS) based on surveying households across the UK. It provides quarterly snapshots for key labour market statistics such as official employment figures, job characteristics and work-related education. Government departments, public bodies and charities use this survey extensively for policy making and research. There is increasing user demand for data disaggregated by demography and geography, and this exacerbates difficulties in calculating uncertainties for estimates due to small subpopulation sample sizes. Improvements to the estimates and their uncertainties can therefore have significant public impact.
We are specifically interested in validating methodology for computing confidence intervals (CIs) for small and large proportions in the APS. For simple random samples (SRS), several well-established methods are available, such as the Wald, Wilson or Clopper-Pearson CIs. However, for surveys such as the APS with complex sample designs including, for example, stratification, clustering or longitudinal elements, this is still an area of active research. A common strategy consists in adapting the SRS approaches by introducing an effective sample size which incorporates the impact of the sample design on precision. Unfortunately, the literature disagrees on how to estimate the effective sample size, and the optimal approach may depend on the specific survey design.
We therefore aim to develop a CI method appropriate for the APS and validate its performance. This could be approached through simulated samples based on suitably simplified versions of the APS sample design. Further aspects requiring more research concern CIs for sample subgroups and accounting for a calibration stage within survey weighting.
Academic mathematical scientists from KE Hub partner university departments are invited to take part in these workshops. If you would like to attend, please contact your local KE Champion to receive the meeting link or get in touch with the organisers, Lauren Hyndman and Diwei Zhou.
KE Hub Triage Workshops are informal discussion sessions where one B.I.G. Partner presents a challenge they are currently facing, with the aim of determining:
- What, if any, mathematical sciences approaches can be used to address the challenge?
- Who from the mathematical sciences community would like to take on the challenge?
- What mechanisms are most appropriate for driving the challenge forward?
The purpose of these workshops is to allow the B.I.G. Partner to engage directly with academic mathematical scientists to probe the scientific content of their proposed challenge. The environment is relaxed and interactive, and we encourage questions, clarifications and discussions throughout. You can find information on all upcoming and past workshops here.