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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · 15h

blog post: struggles with equivalent weights

you've done MRP.

someone asks you for survey weights.

how to get them ?

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · 7d

blog post: beyond balancing

in midterms, voters tend to support the out party for balance

do polls still help predict midterms ? yes

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Hampton Gaddy @hggaddy.bsky.social · 12d

LSE and @bspsuk.bsky.social are hosting a workshop on "Being an academic in population studies" on 3 November! It'll be a nice mix of methods training and career advice with great talks by @ericbschneider.bsky.social, Wendy Sigle, José Manuel Aburto, and others!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/being-an-a...

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · 14d

blog post: Fat Bear Week

Basu's Bears is a lesson in:

1) using auxiliary information (pre-salmon-feasting weights)

2) how bad an unbiased estimator can be

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/09/23/s...

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Hampton Gaddy @hggaddy.bsky.social · 22d

The data is now available for all teams who've already signed up! More sign-ups very welcome! Happy analysing! 💻📊

Hampton Gaddy @hggaddy.bsky.social · Aug 27

📢 Interested in excess mortality methods, and want a challenge? I'm organising the "One Epidemic, Many Estimates" (1EME) project! Register *now* as a many analyst team (submissions due 15 March 2026), and then join us at LSE for a workshop on 21-22 May 2026! (1/n)

www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-His...

One Epidemic, Many Estimates (1EME)

www.lse.ac.uk

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · 21d

blog post: random sampling is not leaving

we turned to response instrument Z because random sampling is "dead"

but does this method still rely on starting with random sampling ?

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · 21d

blog post: random sampling is not leaving

we turned to response instrument Z because random sampling is "dead"

but does this method still rely on starting with random sampling ?

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Reposted by Maria Gargiulo

Human Rights Data Analysis Group @hrdag.org · Sep 3

HRDAG stands firmly with the human rights community in insisting that encryption is not optional — it is fundamental to the defense of truth.

Any attempt to ban or backdoor encryption technology is a threat to the human rights community.

hrdag.substack.com/p/without-en...

Without Encryption My Work Wouldn’t Be Possible

Our work isn’t always popular. It can infuriate those in power who want to cover up incriminating truths about the past and current trends in state violence. So when I think about HRDAG’s threat model...

hrdag.substack.com

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Data Cívica @datacivica.bsky.social · 26d

¿Qué son los controles civiles y por qué importan para resistir a la militarización? 🪖

Te esperamos en este espacio gratuito y accesible convocado por Intersecta. Participa nuestra analista de datos Sierra Wells.

Regístrate: bit.ly/FM25INTR

📆 Jueves 11 de septiembre, 19 hrs.

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · 28d

blog post on imputation (again):

we want E[Y|X] but X can be missing

@lucystats.bsky.social @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social @glenmartin.bsky.social @maartenvsmeden.bsky.social et al. say:

random imputation should use Y
deterministic imputation shouldn't

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/09/09/s...

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Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) @mpidr.bsky.social · Sep 8

🚨Job Offer🚨PhD Student Position
The @lshtm.bsky.social, in partnership with the @mpidr.bsky.social is opening an 18-month Research Assistant position, with the successful candidate embarking on a PhD program at LSHTM.
www.demogr.mpg.de/en/career_61...
@ezagheni.bsky.social #phd #jobs #demography

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Sep 3

blog post: connections between survey statistics and experimental design.

split-plot designs are analogous to cluster sampling.

blocking is analogous to stratification.

featuring an experiment by Arjun Potter and colleagues at NM-AIST !

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Population Studies Group, LSHTM @psglshtm.bsky.social · Aug 27

🗣️Exciting PhD opportunity!

Join @lshtm.bsky.social PSG and @mpidr.bsky.social as a PhD student/Research Assistant on an 3-year project leading to a funded PhD. The role focuses on developing cutting-edge methods to model health & mortality in low-income countries.
jobs.lshtm.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Job Opportunity at LSHTM: Research Assistant

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is one of the world’s leading public health universities. Our mission is to improve health and health equity in the UK and worldwide; working i...

jobs.lshtm.ac.uk

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Hampton Gaddy @hggaddy.bsky.social · Aug 27

📢 Interested in excess mortality methods, and want a challenge? I'm organising the "One Epidemic, Many Estimates" (1EME) project! Register *now* as a many analyst team (submissions due 15 March 2026), and then join us at LSE for a workshop on 21-22 May 2026! (1/n)

www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-His...

One Epidemic, Many Estimates (1EME)

www.lse.ac.uk

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Reposted by Maria Gargiulo

shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Aug 27

blog post: Thomas Lumley writes about Interviewing your Laptop

what are the problems with using LLMs as survey respondents ?

how are these similar to problems with poststratification ?

CC @tslumley.bsky.social

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Aug 19

blog post: answers from the BLS

2 weeks ago we learned about the CES employer survey that produces the jobs count.

we asked: why use employment size in stratification but not nonresponse adjustment ?

BLS responded !

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/08/19/s...

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Aug 12

blog post: 2nd helpings of the 2nd flavor of calibration 🍨🍨

in political surveys, we "logit shift" predictions to match known aggregates (e.g. total Democratic votes).

but what happens for multinomial outcomes ?

a fun excuse to review IPF/raking 🍂

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/08/12/s...

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Aug 5

blog post: BLS Jobs Report

let's learn about the CES employer survey that produces the jobs count.

late reporting (a form of nonresponse) results in revisions.

my first (naive !) question: why use employment size in stratification but not nonresponse adjustment ?

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Nuffield College, Oxford @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social · Jul 31

📢Calling all sociology scholars, including social policy and demography: applications for the 2026-27 Sociology Visitorships at Nuffield College are now open. 🗓️Deadline: 29 Sep 2025

ℹ️More info & applications: www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/our-research...

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Jul 23

blog post: a new paradigm for polling

so far we assumed response R is independent of outcome Y **within X**

but if R can depend on Y, what to do ?

one idea: use a response instrument Z

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/07/22/s...

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Catherine D'Ignazio (she/her/ella) @kanarinka.bsky.social · Jul 22

Join us to celebrate five years of #DataAgainstFeminicide
& launch the Swahili version of our tools, co-designed w/ Femicide Count – Kenya

🗓️ Aug 14, 2025
🕚 11AM EDT | 12PM ARG/BRA | 6PM EAT
🌍 In English w/ live interpretation to Spanish, Portuguese, & Swahili
Register: mit.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Jul 15

blog post about longitudinal/panel data:

panel data includes repeated surveys of the same people over time.

this structure can be incorporated into models using person-level effects.

but misspecifying the person-level effects distribution can cause bias.

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Jul 9

blog post about imputation:

With nonresponse worsening, we want to adjust for a lot of covariates.

This often means handling many missing covariates.

In theory, fit one big model for everything. But how can practitioners handle this ?

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Jul 7

*really* excited for this !

love the name: Structural Zero.

Alan Agresti's Categorical Data Analysis book offers a good explanation (which I'm sure the amazing authors at @hrdag.org will get into):

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shira mitchell @shiraamitchell.bsky.social · Jul 2

blog post about Sparsified MRP:

With nonresponse worsening, we want to adjust for a lot of covariates.

Estimates from such big models will be unstable without a lot of data and/or regularization.

Have you seen MRP with sparsifying priors ?

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/07/01/s...

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