World Statistics Day
A Statistic will be broadcast in this forum by AQMeN each day to help mark World Statistics Day on 20th October, as well as being 'tweeted' on Twitter. Contributed Statistics from Members are also welcome.
AQMeN Edinburgh will be holding a seminar to mark the day on 20th October.
10% of young people who leave school at the age of 16 and who do not enter education, employment or training, are dead within ten years (Radio 4 Jan, 2010)
The average daily prison population in Scotland has risen by 31% over the last 10 years, and the remand population has increased by 72%.
Fawlty Towers is statistically the best value British sitcom, with the longest scripts, longest running time and the most laughs per minute.
47% of Scots in 2007 who support SNP didn't want Scottish independence; 42% of people who wanted independence support parties who don't.
What are the odds of surviving a plane crash?
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/what-are-the-odds-you-s...
Most Published Research Findings Are False (or so it is claimed!)
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
USA is the most litigious society in the world with around 70% of the world's lawyers tho it’s not clear which is the direction of causality
The area of native woodland in Edinburgh is 516 hectares, 18.9% of the total woodland area, or 2.0% of the total land area of Edinburgh.
The area of native woodland in Glasgow is 870ha, 40.2% of the total woodland area or 5.0% of the total land area of Glasgow.
According to ROSPA statistics, in 2002 there were 7.5 times more victims of accidents involving leaves than shotguns.
13.1% of the population in Scotland are employment deprived, up from 11.6% in 2009.
UK and USA mortality from breast cancer has fallen by 40% since the meta-analysis of all randomised treatment trials began in 1985.
An old joke suggests that 'when Elvis Presley died in 1977, there were an estimated 37 Elvis impersonators in the world. By 1993, there were 48,000 Elvis impersonators, an exponential increase. Extrapolating from this, by 2010 there will be 2.5 billion Elvis impersonators. The population of the world will be 7.5 billion by 2010. Every 3rd person will be an Elvis impersonator by 2010.'
There is a more serious point about how appropriate simple methods of extrapolation are fr making social science forecasts.
The proportion of the Scottish population aged 75 and over increased by 14% between 1999 and 2009
In Scotland there were 30,507 pupils in independent schools in 2009. This is 4.31 per cent of Scottish school pupils. The percentage of pupils in independent schools remained unchanged after a gradual increase from 3.86 per cent in 2000 to 4.31 per cent in 2008.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/Tre...
On average, Scots travelled 7,056 miles per person per year within Great Britain in the two-year period 2007/2008
The Age Participation Index (API) attempts to estimate the proportion of 17 year olds who will participate in higher education for the first time before their 21st birthday. It is not a measure of participation of a particular cohort, but rather a projection of future participation of 17 year old Scots based on current first time participation rates of Scots under the age of 21. The focus of the API is on entrants to full-time higher education in the UK.
The API has remained relatively stable in recent years, following a peak at 50.2 per cent in 2000-01 and a decline to 44.6 per cent in 2002-03. Over the last year the API increased by 0.8 percentage points from 42.2 percent to 43.0 per cent in 2008-09. Since 1999-00 trends in participation of males and females have followed the overall pattern of the API, with participation by females (48.8 per cent in 2008-09) above the overall level of the API and that of males (37.5 per cent in 2008-09) below the overall API. The increased participation demonstrated by the 0.8 per cent increase in the API has mostly been driven by increased participation from males (from 36.1 per cent in 2007-08). This has narrowed the gender gap slightly from 12.7 percentage points in 2007-08 to 11.4 percentage points in 2008-09.
The majority of HE courses undertaken by first time entrants are at first degree level, contributing 26.3 per cent to the overall API (43.0 per cent). HNC/HNDs accounted for just over a third of courses with other HE courses contributing little to the API. Participation rates by level of study components have remained relatively stable since 1999-00.
Scottish HEIs account for the majority of HE provision to those entrants included in the API, with the HEI component contributing 27.4 per cent (almost two thirds of the total) to the total API, Scottish colleges contribute almost a third of participation included in the API with the remainder of provision taking place at HEIs in the rest of the UK.
The 2008-09 API for local authorities ranges from the lowest value of 33.8 per cent participation by young people in Falkirk to the highest value of 64.9 per cent in East Renfrewshire. Eilean Siar and East Dunbartonshire also have relatively high values (58.5 and 56.7 per cent respectively); other local authorities with relatively low values are Midlothian and West Lothian (34.2 and 34.4 per cent respectively).
Following a small decline between 2001-02 and 2002-03 the API for deprived areas has remained stable, with a slight increase in the most recent year. Entrants from the 20 per cent most deprived areas of Scotland have an API value of 24.8 per cent in 2008-09, up 1.4 percentage points since 2007-08. This compares to 47.6 per cent for non-deprived areas, up by 0.5 percentage points from 47.1 per cent in 2007-08. While API values for both deprived and non-deprived areas have increased over the last year, the increase in participation from deprived areas is greater than that from non-deprived areas, slightly narrowing the gap between the two rates, which now stands at 22.8 percentage points.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Lifelong-learning/AP...
"For 160 years, best-performance life expectancy has steadily increased by a quarter of a year per year, an extraordinary constancy of human achievement."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/296/5570/1029?ijkey=otI/7cJky...
Tweeted by AQMeN this morning, 20th October 2010
October 20 is World Statistics Day (WSD). The goal of WSD is to raise awareness of the many achievements of government statistics.
Why 20-10-10? The date 20-10-2010 was chosen since the year rounding in '0' has always been an important year in official statistics.
In many countries, this is the year when the population and housing census is conducted
It is also the base year for the trend analysis in economic statistics or in compilation of national accounts or input-output tables
In 2010, some 3 billion people will be counted in some 60 countries.
This is why the United Nations choose 20-10-2010 to emphasize the importance of this year in official statistics calendar
In Scotland, the proportion of those aged 16 and over who smoke has fallen from 30.7% in 1999 to 25.2% in 2008
In Scotland, the proportion of those aged 16 and over who smoke has fallen from 30.7% in 1999 to 25.2% in 2008.
The provisional number of false fire alarms attended in Scotland was 51,954 in 2009-10, 70% of these were due to failure of apparatus
In Scotland, one in four children aged 5 do not live with their natural father.
In 2009-10, the total number of fires in Scotland was (provisionally) 38,658, 5 per cent lower than in 2008-09 (40,570).
There were 545 drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2009, 5 per cent fewer than the previous year.