Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency: Eighth Edition (2025)
Chapter: Front Matter
Consensus Study Report
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This activity was supported by Grant No. SES- 2217307 between the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation, which provides support for the work of the Committee on National Statistics from a consortium of federal agencies. Also supporting the Committee’s work are a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and individual agreements with agencies in the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and the Treasury. Additional support was provided by the National Academy of Sciences W. K. Kellogg Foundation Fund. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2025). Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency, Eighth Edition. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/27934.
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COMMITTEE ON THE EIGHTH EDITION OF PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES FOR A STATISTICAL AGENCY
KATHARINE G. ABRAHAM (Chair), Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, College Park
MICK P. COUPER, Research Professor, University of Michigan
WILLIAM A. DARITY, JR., Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, Economics, and Business, Duke University
DIANA FARRELL, Independent Director and Trustee (at various institutions, including the Urban Institute and the National Bureau of Economic Research)
ROBERT M. GOERGE, Senior Fellow, NORC of the University of Chicago
ERICA L. GROSHEN, Senior Economic Advisor, Cornell University
DANIEL E. HO, William Benjamin Scott and Luna M. Scott Professor of Law, Professor of Political Science and Computer Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
HILARY HOYNES, Chancellor’s Professor of Economics and Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley
H. V. JAGADISH, Edgar F. Codd Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan
DANIEL KIFER, Professor of Computer Science, The Pennsylvania State University
SHARON LOHR, Professor Emerita, Arizona State University
NELA RICHARDSON, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, ADP Research Institute
C. MATTHEW SNIPP, Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University
ELIZABETH A. STUART, Hurley-Dorrier Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Study Staff
MELISSA CHIU, Director
JENNIFER PARK, Study Director
ALEX HENDERSON, Senior Program Assistant
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COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS
KATHARINE G. ABRAHAM (Chair), Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, College Park
MICK P. COUPER, Research Professor, University of Michigan
WILLIAM A. DARITY, JR., Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, Economics, and Business, Duke University
ROBERT M. GOERGE, Senior Fellow, NORC of the University of Chicago
ERICA L. GROSHEN, Senior Economics Advisor, Cornell University
ROEE GUTMAN, Professor of Biostatistics, Brown University School of Public Health
COLLEEN M. HEFLIN, Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs, Syracuse University
DANIEL E. HO, William Benjamin Scott and Luna M. Scott Professor of Law, Professor of Political Science and Computer Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
HILARY HOYNES, Chancellor’s Professor of Economics and Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley
H. V. JAGADISH, Edgar F. Codd Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan
SHARON LOHR, Professor Emerita, Arizona State University
LLOYD B. POTTER, State Demographer of Texas and Director of the Texas Demographic Center at University of Texas at San Antonio
NELA RICHARDSON, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, ADP Research Institute
ELIZABETH A. STUART, Hurley-Dorrier Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
FLORENCIA TORCHE, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of International Affairs and Sociology, Princeton University
SALIL VADHAN, Vicky Joseph Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Staff
MELISSA CHIU, Director
BRIAN HARRIS-KOJETIN, Senior Scholar
CONSTANCE F. CITRO, Senior Scholar
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Reviewers
This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report, nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by ALICIA L. CARRIQUIRY, Department of Statistics, Iowa State University. This coordinator was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.
Dedication
This Eighth Edition of Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency (P&P) is dedicated to the late Katherine K. Wallman (1943–2024). It is hard to overstate her contributions to the federal statistical system during her long career of federal service. She was a steadfast supporter of the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT), serving as a volunteer expert on study panels, regularly briefing the members and the statistical community at CNSTAT seminars, and citing P&P in statistical policy directives.
She began her career at the National Center for Education Statistics and then served in the chief statistician’s office in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and in the Commerce Department. She left federal service in 1981 to become the first executive director of the newly formed Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, established to speak for the value of federal statistics during an era of neglect. In 1992 she returned to federal service as the chief statistician and head of the OMB Statistical and Science Policy Office, a post she held until her retirement at the beginning of 2017.
Among her many accomplishments as chief statistician were overseeing the revision of Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 on race and ethnicity classification in 1997; the enactment of the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002; the development of guidance from an Interagency Technical Working Group (which she co-chaired) that led to publication of the Supplemental Poverty Measure; and the issuance of Statistical Policy Directive No. 1 on Fundamental Responsibilities of Federal Statistical Agencies and Recognized Statistical Units in 2014.
Each of these initiatives and many others required her boundless energy, her steadfast dedication, and her legendary skills in bringing people and agencies with different viewpoints together for the common good. She remained active professionally after her retirement, working with the American Statistical Association and other organizations in support of the federal statistical system. It is with deep gratitude for her exceptional contributions to objective, relevant, and high-quality federal statistics for the public good that CNSTAT dedicates this eighth edition of P&P in her memory.
Acknowledgments
We thank the many people who contributed their time and expertise to the preparation of this report, including all the current members of CNSTAT. We are most appreciative of their cooperation and assistance.
We are particularly grateful to the CNSTAT staff, including board director Melissa Chiu, study director Jennifer Park, and senior program assistant Alex Henderson. Kirsten Sampson-Snyder and Bea Porter organized the review process, and Marc DeFrancis’s thorough editing improved the readability and accessibility of the report. We are grateful to all of them for their contributions and help.
Finally, we thank the following federal agencies, which support the Committee on National Statistics directly and through a grant from the National Science Foundation, a cooperative agreement from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, and several individual contracts:
- National Science Foundation: Methodology, Measurement, and Statistics Program; National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
- Social Security Administration: Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics
- U.S. Department of Agriculture: Economic Research Service, National Agricultural Statistics Service
- U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Census Bureau
- U.S. Department of Education: National Center for Education Statistics
- U.S. Department of Energy: Energy Information Administration
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Center for Health Statistics, National Institute on Aging, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Office of Policy Development and Research
- U.S. Department of Justice: Bureau of Justice Statistics
- U.S. Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics
- U.S. Department of Transportation: Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and
- U.S. Department of the Treasury: Statistics of Income Division, Internal Revenue Service.
Without their support and their commitment to improving the national statistical system, the committee work that is the basis of this report would not have been possible.
Contents
AN ESSENTIAL AND COMPLEX SYSTEM
The Value of National Statistics
A Decentralized and Federated Statistical System
Expanded Availability of New Data Sources
2 The Value of National Statistics
STATISTICS SUPPORT OUR NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE
STATISTICAL INFORMATION POWERS POLICYMAKING
Informs Political Representation
Informs Economic Decision Making
Assists Federal, State, and Local Government Action
Monitors the Social and Economic Health of the Nation, States, and Localities
Provides Evidence for Developing and Evaluating Public and Private-Sector Programs
Provides Input to Social Science Research That Informs the Public
THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF FEDERAL STATISTICS
PRINCIPLE 1: RELEVANCE TO POLICY ISSUES AND SOCIETY
PRINCIPLE 2: CREDIBILITY AMONG DATA USERS AND STAKEHOLDERS
PRINCIPLE 3: TRUST AMONG THE PUBLIC AND DATA SUBJECTS
PRINCIPLE 4: INDEPENDENCE FROM POLITICAL AND OTHER UNDUE EXTERNAL INFLUENCE
PRINCIPLE 5: CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT AND INNOVATION
PRACTICE 1: A CLEARLY DEFINED AND WELL-ACCEPTED MISSION
PRACTICE 2: NECESSARY AUTHORITY AND PROCEDURES TO PROTECT INDEPENDENCE
PRACTICE 3: COMMITMENT TO QUALITY AND PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS OF PRACTICE
PRACTICE 4: PROFESSIONAL ADVANCEMENT OF STAFF
PRACTICE 5: AN ACTIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM
Substantive Research and Analysis
Research on Methodology and Operations
Expanding the Statistical Use of Administrative Records
Evaluating and Using Alternative Data Sources
Value of an Active Research Program
PRACTICE 6: STRONG INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL EVALUATION PROCESSES FOR AN AGENCY’S STATISTICAL PROGRAMS
Evaluating Quality, Relevance, Efficiency
Sunsetting Statistical Products or Programs
PRACTICE 7: COORDINATION AND COLLABORATION WITH OTHER AGENCIES
Coordinating Role of the Office of Management and Budget
PRACTICE 8: RESPECT FOR DATA SUBJECTS AND DATA HOLDERS AND PROTECTION OF THEIR DATA
Protecting and Respecting the Autonomy of Human Research Participants
Respecting the Holders and Subjects of Administrative and Other Data
Protecting the Confidentiality of Data Subjects’ Information
PRACTICE 9: DISSEMINATION OF STATISTICAL PRODUCTS THAT MEET USERS’ NEEDS
Public Statistical Data Products
Restricted-Access Statistical Products
Recent Innovations in Facilitating Access to Confidential Data for Statistical Purposes
PRACTICE 10: OPENNESS ABOUT SOURCES AND LIMITATIONS OF THE DATA PROVIDED
Appendix A Legislation, Regulation, and Guidance Governing Federal Statistics (online only)
Appendix B Organization of the U.S. Federal Statistical System (online only)
Appendix C Additional Frameworks Relevant for Federal Statistics (online only)
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Boxes, Figures, and Table
BOXES
2-1 Federal Statistics as a Public Good
3-1 Summary: Principle 1 (Relevance)
3-2 Summary: Principle 2 (Credibility)
3-3 Summary: Principle 3 (Trust)
3-4 Summary: Principle 4 (Independence)
3-5 Summary: Principle 5 (Innovation)
B-1 Interagency Council on Statistical Policy Membership
C-2 Federal Data Ethics Tenets
C-3 American Statistical Association Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice
C-4 American Economic Association Principles of Economic Measurement
C-5 American Association for Public Opinion Research Code of Professional Ethics and Practices
C-6 Office of Science and Technology Policy Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights
C-7 United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics
C-8 International Statistical Institute Declaration on Professional Ethics
C-9 European Statistics Code of Practice
C-10 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Good Statistical Practice
FIGURES
1-1 The U.S. federal statistical system as depicted on StatsPolicy.gov
B-1 The U.S. federal statistical system as depicted on StatsPolicy.gov
C-1 Generic statistical business process model
TABLE
Preface
This report is a flagship publication of the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT). CNSTAT is a standing unit of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, established in 1972 to provide an independent, objective resource for evaluating and improving the work of the decentralized federal statistical system. Over its 52-year history, under the terms of the 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences to provide advice to the government on scientific and technical matters, CNSTAT has produced 340 reports evaluating federal statistical programs, surveys, and statistical methods for the public good, regardless of persuasion or party (Committee on National Statistics, 2024).
The first edition of Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency (P&P; also known as “the purple book”) was published in 1992. During legislative debates regarding the (unsuccessful) establishment of a Bureau of Environmental Statistics and the (successful) establishment of a Bureau of Transportation Statistics, congressional staff asked CNSTAT for advice on what constitutes an effective federal statistical agency. CNSTAT prepared a document providing high-level guidance. That document, the first edition of P&P, defined and discussed reasons for the establishment of a statistical agency, identified three fundamental principles for an effective statistical agency (relevance to policy, credibility with data users, and trust of data subjects), and identified 11 practices to enable a statistical agency to put these principles into action and adhere to them. The report has proven helpful to Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Office of Management and Budget, federal statistical agencies, and others seeking to understand what constitutes an effective and credible statistics
entity.1 P&P is designed to assist them, as well as the statistical agencies’ leadership, their staff, and the research organizations that support them, to be fully aware of the standards and ideals that are fundamental to the agencies’ work.
Since the first edition of P&P, several other national and international statistical organizations, including the American Statistical Association and the United Nations Statistical Commission, have issued guidance that aligns with, echoes, and reinforces many of the same themes (see Appendix C). Many of the principles and practices elaborated here also apply to statistical activities in federal data strategy, evaluation,2 and program agencies; in state, local, and tribal government agencies; and in nongovernmental organizations. Indeed, the past few years have witnessed greater attention to using administrative and private-sector data sources, not only for national statistics (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2017a,b,c, 2023b,c, 2024c) but also more broadly for program evaluation and evidence-based policymaking (Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, 2017).
Now more than ever, at a time of change in the U.S. statistical system, this report has an important role. It provides an independent perspective that spans departments and administrations. To maintain its usefulness to policymakers, the report has been updated every 4 years to provide a current edition to newly appointed cabinet secretaries and other personnel at the beginning of each presidential administration or second term.3
CNSTAT has made some changes to P&P over time. The first three editions included three principles (National Research Council [NRC], 1992, 2001, 2005). In light of growing concerns about threats to the agencies’ independence, the fourth edition elevated statistical agency independence from a practice to a fourth principle (NRC, 2009). The number of practices fluctuated across the first seven editions, as conclusions and recommendations in CNSTAT study reports led to adding or combining some practices. The seventh edition added a fifth principle on Continual Improvement and Innovation, which has been a strong theme in a number of practices, to recognize its importance for the effective functioning of statistical agencies in the 21st century (NASEM, 2017a, 2021a, 2023b,c).
The principles and practices described in this eighth edition are largely unchanged from the prior editions. Language originating from prior editions is not marked as such for ease of reading. However, examples have been updated to reflect legal, policy, and programmatic changes since the
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1 See (Citro, 2014; GAO, 1995, 2007, 2012; OMB, 2007, 2014b).
2 See (OMB 2020a) in Appendix A and Principles and Practices for Federal Program Evaluation (NASEM, 2017d).
3 Beginning with the second edition in 2001.
prior volume. In addition, the introductory chapter from the seventh edition has been split into two chapters and highlight boxes have been added to chapters to improve the clarity of key messages. The appendices (available only online) have been substantially updated to reflect the legal, regulatory, and policy changes to the federal statistical system that have resulted from the Evidence Act of 2018, as well as the expansion of guidelines for statistical practice that have emerged both nationally and internationally.
Katharine G. Abraham, Chair
Committee on National Statistics
October 2024
