Statistics and Methods Core Mission

The Statistics and Methods Core supports CCPR research and training by providing expertise in the choice, development, and implementation of statistical methodology. This includes:

providing advice on all aspects of statistical design and analysis for CCPR research projects;
developing new statistical methodology, models, and tools to support current and proposed research projects;
coordinating the matching of the statistical expertise in other units of the UCLA campus with CCPR research projects;
improving CCPR affiliates' access to state-of-the art statistical methodology through workshops and seminar series and advising the Computing Core and Social Science Computing on acquisition and support of statistical software.

Consulting

CCPR offers "drop-in" statistical consulting services to meet short-term needs of CCPR affiliates. This can include:

assistance with study planning and design,
assistance with the choice and application of statistical methods,
advice on interpretation and presentation of statistical results.

In addition to helping you with what to do, we will also help you with how to do it:

assistance with statistical software,
development of specialized statistical methods.

To schedule an appointment for advising on statistical design and analysis, or for help with statistical programming, please email CCPR's statistical programmer and statistician, Andrew Hicks here.

Andrew will also maintain regular office hours at 4335C in the Public Affairs Building Monday thru Friday from 2:00 - 3:00pm.

Or you can reach Andrew in his office at CCPR through Skype:

Temporary Data R.A.

The Statistics and Methods Core now offers to CCPR faculty affiliates the use of a Temporary Data Research Assistant. This position was created to assist in the beginning stages of research projects. The R.A. will be available to CCPR faculty investigators to assist in importing, managing, organizing, and cleaning data for analysis, and also for literature searches and review.

If you would like to learn more about how the RA can assist in your research or would like to set up an appointment, please email here.

Statistical Computing

For a list of statistical packages available to CCPR affiliates please see CCPR Computing.

UCLA's Academic Technology Services provides UCLA researchers with assistance in statistical computing issues through the Statistical Consulting Group. Currently, ATS offers classes and seminars, as well as learning modules on SAS, SPSS, Stata, and R through their statistical computing page.

In the future, CCPR's Statistics and Methods Core will offer computing workshops designed specifically for an audience of demographic researchers, and will collaborate with other campus groups on seminar series and methodology workshops. Tentative topics include: selection bias in missing data and observational studies, Bayesian perspectives on spatial analysis in the social sciences, social network modeling for demographers, combining demographic data from multiple sources, and causal modeling in demographic research.

Workshops

The Statistics and Methods Core will also also offer workshops in statistical methods and programming open to all CCPR affiliates. Recordings and notes from these workshops are available below.

1/27/2012 Multilevel Modeling Using Stata - ppt do-file

*The password for workshop videos is 'workshop4CCPR'.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) Why is there no constant term reported in Stata for ologit and oprobit?

2) Using Instrumental Variable Estimation with weak correlation between the instruments and the endogenous explanatory variable.