Dear Readers,
This journal attempts to provide a forum where good statistical methods are applied to data sets that inform public policy. To that end, we have provided records on the locations of pediatric cancer cases in the state of Florida to five different groups of researchers, and invited them to apply their different methodologies to discover whether or not there are regions for which the incidence of pediatric cancer is relatively high.
Over the next few weeks, a series of five papers, along with an introduction and a discussion, will be posted on-line at the Statistics and Public Policy website. Each paper is marked by the tag “Analyses of Florida Pediatric Cancer Data.” These papers study the Florida data from multiple perspectives, under different sets of assumptions. We encourage interested parties to read those papers, weigh the evidence, and decide what next steps, if any, are warranted.
Sincerely,
David Banks and Sharon Lohr