John E. Rolph – författare

Public policy research frequently requires using statistics to address important and complex problems in a pragmatic way. In this volume, we describe the rich analytical techniques and substantive applications that typify how statistical thinking has been applied at the RAND Corporation over the past two decades. Our philosophy is to be critical yet constructive. We strive to bridge the gap between being a discerning consumer of analyses, and an applied statistician who uses the available information to advise the policy-maker in the face of substantial uncertainty. Case studies of public policy problems are useful for teaching because they are familiar. Almost everyone knows something abut health insurance, global warming, and capital punishment, to name but a few of the applications covered in this casebook. Each case study has a common format that describes the policy questions, the statistical questions, and the successful and the unsuccessful analytic strategies. Readers should be familiar with basic statistical concepts including sampling and regression. This casebook is designed for statistics courses in areas ranging from economics to health policy to the law at both the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. Empirical researchers and policy-makers should also find this casebook informative. Sally C. Morton is head of the RAND Statistics Group, a senior statistician in the RAND Health Program, and on the faculty of the UCLA School of Public Health. Her research interests include meta- analysis, the sampling of vulnerable populations, and the use of statistics in health policy. She is an associate editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association and Statistical Science, has served on the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics editorial board, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences

For every weapons system being developed, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) must make a critical decision: Should the system go forward to full-scale production? The answer to that question may involve not only tens of billions of dollars but also the nation's security and military capabilities. In the milestone process used by DOD to answer the basic acquisition question, one component near the end of the process is operational testing, to determine if a system meets the requirements for effectiveness and suitability in realistic battlefield settings. Problems discovered at this stage can cause significant production delays and can necessitate costly system redesign. This book examines the milestone process, as well as the DOD's entire approach to testing and evaluating defense systems. It brings to the topic of defense acquisition the application of scientific statistical principles and practices.

The Panel on Statistical Methods for Testing and Evaluating Defense Systems had a broad mandate-to examine the use of statistics in conjunction with defense testing. This involved examining methods for software testing, reliability test planning and estimation, validation of modeling and simulation, and use of modem techniques for experimental design. Given the breadth of these areas, including the great variety of applications and special issues that arise, making a contribution in each of these areas required that the Panel's work and recommendations be at a relatively general level. However, a variety of more specific research issues were either brought to the Panel's attention by members of the test and acquisition community, e.g., what was referred to as Dubin's challenge (addressed in the Panel's interim report), or were identified by members of the panel. In many of these cases the panel thought that a more in-depth analysis or a more detailed application of suggestions or recommendations made by the Panel would either be useful as input to its deliberations or could be used to help communicate more individual views of members of the Panel to the defense test community.This resulted in several research efforts. Given various criteria, especially immediate relevance to the test and acquisition community, the Panel has decided to make available three technical or background papers, each authored by a Panel member jointly with a colleague. These papers are individual contributions and are not a consensus product of the Panel; however, the Panel has drawn from these papers in preparation of its final report: Statistics, Testing, and Defense Acquisition. The Panel has found each of these papers to be extremely useful and they are strongly recommended to readers of the Panel's final report.