International Statistical Design and Analysis
Westat provides consulting to statistical organizations throughout the world.
This consulting has ranged from improving specific data collection activities, to overall review and
improvement of government agencies, to ensuring comparability of data collected across multiple
countries.
Kinds of services Westat performs:
- Diet and nutrition survey. Westat advised the British Office of National Statistics on how it
might improve its National Diet and Nutrition Survey.
- Exposure to air pollution. Westat helped design a study of Kuwaitis' exposure to air pollutants
from the oil fires ignited in the Persian Gulf War.
- International comparability of education data. Westat has served as the international sampling
coordinator for both the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We have advised on sample
design, weighting, field procedures, and quality control issues as they arose within
and across participating countries.
- Quality improvement in statistical offices. Westat has assisted numerous European statistical
offices to improve the quality of their activities. These efforts have become the prototype for efforts
currently underway throughout Europe. Similar assistance also has been provided to private sector
organizations throughout the world.
- Household sample designs. Westat provided assistance to the governments of the Philippines,
Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus to develop national household sample designs for measuring economic conditions.
- Business sample designs. Westat assisted China with developing a business sample survey in Jiangsu
Province and with developing plans for an expansion to a national survey.
- Training in survey sampling. Westat conducted a 1-week training workshop in survey sampling for
Statistics South Africa (SSA). The workshop attendees included staff from SSA and several neighboring countries.
- Training in human exposure to air pollutants. Westat presented training courses on the design and
conduct of field studies to assess human exposure to air pollutants for researchers from 24 countries
on 5 continents. More than half were from developing countries. The courses covered research
design, sample design, questionnaire design, field operations logistics, analysis, and reporting.
Regions of activity:
- Africa: Mauritania, South Africa
- Asia: China, Kuwait
- Europe: Belarus, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom
- North America: Canada, Mexico, United States
- Pacific: Australia, New Zealand, Philippines
For more information about the International Research Area,
please send us a message.