The Role of Statistics in the Development of Health Care Policy

The growth of the health care industry places increasing strain on available resources.As in other areas of social policy, health statisticians and health data are increasingly expected to provide keys to rational decision making.To accomplish this goal, the statistician and decision-maker need to interact to an increasing degree.The current issues in health policy and the statistician's contribution to policy analysis are discussed in the context of the National Center for Health Statistics experience.While the article focuses on health, it has implications for statisticians and policy formation in other fields.