Report of the fifteenth anniversary conference : review and evaluation of past activities of the Committee with suggestions for future study in demographic, health, and medical-economic statistics.

  • United States. National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics.
Date:
1966
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the fifteenth anniversary conference : review and evaluation of past activities of the Committee with suggestions for future study in demographic, health, and medical-economic statistics. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ON VITAL AND HEALTH STATISTICS Past and present members of the U.S. National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, a technical group advisory to the Surgeon General of the U.S. Public HealthService, metin Washington, D.C., on December 14 and 15, 1964, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of its creation by assessing its record and planning for its future. Former and present Committee members and those who attended the anniversary meeting are shown in Appendix I, The present document, summarizing the dis- cussions that took place over these 2 days, is structured according to the agenda that was followed. Material in this report was selected and summarized from the verbatim record by John Storck, Ph.D., Division of Vital Statistics. Occasionally the order of discussion has been rearranged to bring closely related topics together. A few quotations from the verbatim record have been edited slightly for purely verbal reasons. Suggestions INTRODUCTION DR. ROBERT DYAR, Chairman Dr. Dyar opened the meeting with three actions of respect: he named the Committee's predecessor chairmen (Dr. Lowell J. Reed, Dr. Philip M. Hauser, Mr. Pascal K. Whelpton, and Dr. Brian MacMahon); he noted with regret that death deprived the conference of three former Committee members (Dr. W. Thurber Fales, Mr. P. K, Whelpton, and Dr. Harold F, Dorn); and he greeted two guests (Mr. F, Fraser Harris, Direc- tor of the Health and Welfare Division of the Canadian Dominion Bureau of Statistics, and Dr. Ruth R. Puffer, Chief, Health Statistics Branchof the Pan American Health Organization). Dr. Dyar called attention to the uniqueness of the Committee: it is multidisciplinary (an unusual concept 15 years ago); it provides a means for vital and public health statisticians to cooper- ate with sources and users of their data; it con- ducts no statistical programs of its own, has no authority except its judgment, and endeavors only to be constructively responsive to questions posed by others in the public health and medical fields; and it is part of an international movement, since some 50 countries have the same or similar framework. It is the purpose of this conference, Dr. Dyar observed, to discuss forward-looking possibilities for the consideration of the present Committee. Perhaps we should modify our activities and interests to meet the challenge of new prob- lems. What issues should we face? What new subjects should we consider? What methods and procedures should we use?