According to a poll conducted by the World Cancer Research Fund and reported by BBC News, just one in five Britons eats the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. If we are to take this seriously, it would be useful to know whether we are missing the target by a little or a lot: if the average number of portions consumed is 4.5 then that is a

Ever wondered where urban myths come from?  Well, one strong contender might be press releases. We have spotted this article in the Guardian which provides excellent insight into the misuse of statistics which may lie beneath many a misleading  headline. On reading a press release from the Institute of Advancd Motorists (IAM) which referred to 57% of bike riders – nationally – admitting to jumping red lights, Peter Walker smelt a rat and instinctually started asking questions.  Q.

Figures on spending and borrowing by European countries are now a lot more reliable, according to the head of the European Statistics agency, Walter Radermacher - especially Greek data. But trustworthiness of data depended on mebers of the European Union being required to share more, and break down barriers around data confidentiality. Appearing before the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affiars committee – a report of the event here - Radermacher called for

The Health and Social Care Act now coming into force will have profound and – it’s argued – damaging consequences for fairness in healthcare. The basis for NHS data now becomes care commissioning groups and that switch may undermine the availability of the information that’s vital for monitoring who gets to access services, where and how. An article in the British Medical Journal argues that area based structures for collecting data and

The Daily Mail doesn’t pull its punches: Rise of poisonous caterpillar is unstoppable, say experts. The caterpillar is the larva of the oak processionary moth, and the story continues with the information that “Each caterpillar is covered in 63,000 hairs which can trigger potentially lethal asthma attacks” – and a warning that the London Olympics might be under threat. Of course, from a statistical point of view it is the

The government doesn’t seem to know much about the cost or impact of its own Open Data initiative, according to the National Audit Office. The monitors have been looking at both Whitehall and councils as they push out reams of data on activities and spending, and they are disappointed. Amyas Morse, head of the NAO and comptroller and auditor general, says opening up ‘has potential’ but ‘what the government is lacking

The Times, which operates behind a paywall, asked hospital trusts for data on when patients were discharged and other media picked up the result – hundreds of thousands apparently being sent home in the middle of the night. The NHS medial director Sir Bruce Keogh expressed his concern. But were the figures right? By coincidence the Audit Commission has just been looking at how hospitals ‘code’ the duration of patient

Fact. Look closely at the numbers relating to most things in life and you will gain extra insight (and sometimes, you will be led to knowledge concerning something else entirely). Case in mind?:  sports statues. The unveiling of a statue of Don Revie, Leeds United and England manager, on 5 May 2012, will be the latest addition to the 120 statues in situ dedicated to specific sportspeople in the UK.  There were just

Maybe there’s always likely to be some tensions between the quantitative and the qualitative, science and arts, counting and appraising, but note recent signs of the two cultures coming together. Patrick Hussey in the Guardian says data and numbers are infiltrating the arts – if only for the sake of understanding audiences and box office and sponsorship potential Arts bodies ‘could track ticket purchasers, measure and map audiences, note accounts, compare

How well equipped are members of councils in the age of big and more open data? The House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee is asking for evidence about the backgrounds and capacity of elected members of local authorities in England. The government has talked about ‘armchair auditors’ scrutinising council spending. But councillors themselves are confronted with reams of numbers, about service performance, spending, social and demographic data about the