Transcript:

Statistics Behind the Numbersambience: women and children at a water well in Africa (Chillapanewater collection.wav)The sounds of a community water hole at a remote village in Africa. Should hand pumps be installed in locations like this? That's the kind of question that statisticians are called upon to answer. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.Vance: We, as statisticians, look behind the numbers. Eric Vance is Director of LISA, the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis at Virginia Tech. Vance: Statisticians try to make sense out of observations about the natural world. We're able to ask really interesting questions and figure out what kind of data are needed to answer those questions. One question is if a hand pump is installed in a rural village in Mozambique, what is the impact of that hand pump on the lives of the villagers? There are aid organizations that are trying to spur economic development by providing clean, easy access water in some villages. What's important is to find out what are the impacts of these hand pumps. Some of the implications of the research are to figure out if these types of technologies should be installed in other communities. You know, maybe there's a better technology. Maybe this is a waste of money. Maybe this is a great investment. Maybe this really improves the livelihood of individuals and allows children who would otherwise spend all day collecting water, maybe it allows them the chance to go to school, and that can be very important in terms of the economic development of these areas of these countries. Our findings have policy implications so that maybe in future years, there will be more hand pumps installed or fewer, because maybe there are better technologies to use.We'll hear more about statistics in future programs. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.