Stats + Stories
Statistics need Stories to give them meaning. Stories need Statistics to give them credibility. Every Thursday John Bailer & Rosemary Pennington get together with a new, interesting guest to bring you the Statistics behind the Stories and the Stories behind the Statistics.
Episodes
September 17, 2026 • 23 mins
When reporters cover mass shootings news outlets often struggle to find ways to cover the event that won’t inspire others to do the same thing. Something similar follows in the wake of a suicide. Journalists don’t always cover suicides in their communities but when they do one of the concerns is whether that coverage might lead to a spike in suicides after the story is out. The media’s influence on the actions of ...
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September 10, 2026 • 29 mins
When you think about science’s contribution to society, do you think first about new inventions with an immediate economic benefit? What about scientific advances that deliver enormous societal or environmental benefits—but whose economic value may not be immediate or easily measured? How can these latter advances be evaluated? What is the role of governments in recognizing and promoting these advances?
On “Stats...
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August 31, 2026 • 21 mins
Research suggests that more than half of Americans could benefit from taking a GLP-1 RA medication. The drugs were originally designed to help manage type two diabetes, but in 2024, the Food and Drug Administration approved one GLP-1, Semaglutide, for weight loss. With that approval came a spike in prescriptions for the drugs, and a spike in calls related to GLP-1s to poison control centers. That's the focus of this episode of Stat...
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August 20, 2026 • 25 mins
An entire industry has grown up around nutrition and health. People pushing everything from shakes, to meal kits, to special diets. While some of the claims surrounding such products can be questionable at best, the field of nutrition science is growing. Filled with researchers who are working to truly understand the science of food that is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Michelle Cardel.
Dr. Cardel is an o...
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August 13, 2026 • 25 mins
Women regularly hold leadership roles in stats departments at universities and in major statistical organizations, but it wasn't so long ago that women had to fight to be included. At one point, women faculty had to climb through the windows of the faculty club at Berkeley to attend meetings there; the stories of the struggles of women to be accepted in the profession aren't always visible. But one scholar is working to ensure thos...
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July 23, 2026 • 24 mins
Sports and statistics go hand-in-hand. But some of those statistics are more interesting than others. Each year, the Royal Statistical Society highlights some of the most compelling sports stats in its Sports Statistic of the Year competition this year’s winners are the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with Jessica Hargreaves and Robert Mastrodomenico.
Jessica Hargreaves is the chair of the RSS’s St...
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July 17, 2026 • 24 mins
Last academic year colleges and universities across the US struggled with whether to mandate COVID vaccinations for their students. While colleges often require vaccines, the political controversy surrounding the COVID shots made adopting a vaccine policy a complicated undertaking. But according to one study, it had a profound impact on the national COVID death toll last fall. That's the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories w...
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July 9, 2026 • 27 mins
Taylor Swift is an entertainment juggernaut. She's become one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, with her Eras tour grossing more than $2 billion. During that tour, Swift surprised her audience each night with costume changes to mark different eras of her career. Now, a couple of researchers have figured out how to predict what costumes Swift would wear, when, and if these outfit colors were related to the sentiment o...
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June 25, 2026 • 30 mins
It can take decades for an urban community to develop, but a fraction of that time for it to be torn apart. Each year, urban residents are forced out of their homes and out of their communities to make way for gentrification or other kinds of urban development. When these individuals are forced to leave their homes, they're also forced to leave behind their histories and cultures. These changes often rob communities of support syst...
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June 11, 2026 • 28 mins
The World Health Organization defines health equity as a public health concept describing equity of access to health resources for genetic, socio-environmental, and economic determinants of health, varying according to individuals, families, and social or societal groups. Concerns about data equity have surfaced, which may result in many populations, including those in rural areas with disabilities, experiencing homelessness or liv...
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May 28, 2026 • 30 mins
A 2010 statistic reports that, on average, there are 29,000 personal bankruptcy filings per week in the US, while another states that, on average, 50,000 pieces of floating plastic per square mile are observed in the Pacific Ocean. How might art be used to convey the magnitude of these statistics, suppose 29,000 credit card images of them were arranged to compose a larger image of a full moon, or 50,000 plastic bag images were used...
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May 21, 2026 • 11 mins
As you reach the end of a long day with an excess of stress how do you recharge? Have you found that a long stroll in the sun or through the woods can provide this renewal? Walking in nature is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Dr. Altea Lorenzo-Arribas.
Dr. Altea Lorenzo-Arribas is a socio-economic statistician at Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) working in collaboration with researchers at the S...
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May 14, 2026 • 28 mins
In order to promote the economic and social development of countries, you have to be clear about what economic and social development even means and how you'll measure these concepts. This is where official statistics excels. Many nations continue to build the capacity of their statistical systems to address the needs of their countries. Our episode today focuses on official statistics and statistical capacity development with gues...
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April 30, 2026 • 23 mins
In the late 1600s, a book was published satirizing politics in Europe. Published two decades after the end of the 30 Years’ War, it focuses on the power of the Holy Roman Empire. That book’s impact on statistics is the focus of this episode of stats and stories, with guest Wallace Ferguson.
Wallace Ferguson has taught mathematics and statistics at Chatham and Clarendon Grammar School, Kent, England since 1994. He write...
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April 23, 2026 • 26 mins
With the arrival of spring, anticipation grows for the start of horse racing in the United States. The pinnacle of success in the sport is achieved by a horse that will win each leg of the Triple Crown, which includes the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. The excitement and anticipation of these three races are also associated with pre-race bookmaking and betting as well. But just how good are the bookma...
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April 16, 2026 • 32 mins
Barry Nussbaum (@StatisticsBarry ) is former Chief Statistician at the US EPA, and is president-elect of the American Statistical Association. Included among his many accomplishments at the EPA was providing leadership to the agency effort to remove lead from gasoline
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April 9, 2026 • 27 mins
More than 3 billion people rely on seafood to supply a significant portion of the annual protein in their diets. That number will only rise as the global population grows. At the same time, the United Nations reports that 85% of the world's fisheries are overfished or fully exploited. Researchers are studying the global seafood trade in search of sustainable solutions, and that's a focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest ...
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March 26, 2026 • 23 mins
The work of suffragettes in both the United Kingdom and the United States has been immortalized in textbooks, as well as in movies and TV. The women activists who helped women gain the right to vote are often portrayed as heroes and radicals. What's gotten less attention is the connection between the statistical world and the suffragette movement. That's the focus of a recent article in Chance magazine as well as an issue of Signif...
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March 19, 2026 • 30 mins
In early January 2026, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced changes to the childhood immunization schedules, reducing the number of vaccines recommended for children. This change led to the U.S. being an outlier in terms of required vaccines for children. One reason people express concern about vaccines is fear of adverse reactions. It may surprise many that there is a comprehensive system in place to monit...
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March 12, 2026 • 29 mins
Three hundred and thirty-two days, that was the international statistic of the year in 2020, as identified by the Royal Statistical Society. That was the length of time between scientists publishing the genetic sequence of COVID-19 on the 11th of January, and an effective vaccine being administered on the 8th of December. This vaccine was an integral part of the world's pandemic response. Vaccines aren't new. In a World Health Orga...
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