Milestones and Honors

August 5, 2012 by NCHS

Dr. Nathaniel Schenker Elected American Statistical Association 2014 President

The American Statistical Association (ASA), the world’s largest community of statisticians, has elected NCHS’s Dr. Nathaniel Schenker to serve as ASA’s 109th president. Dr. Schenker will serve as president-elect in 2013 and become president on January 1, 2014. He formerly served as the association’s vice president.

Dr. Schenker is NCHS’s Associate Director for Research and Methodology and received NCHS’s Elijah White Outstanding Scientist Award in 2010. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland. Dr. Schenker has also been honored by ASA, which awarded him the Roger Herriott Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics in 2006 and its prestigious Founders Award for distinguished service in 2011.

Dr. Schenker will serve a 3-year term on ASA’s Board of Directors in 2013-2015, with 1 year each as President-Elect, President, and Past President.

Congratulations, Dr. Schenker!

NCHS Takes Top Poster Honors at Population Association of America Event

Dr. Gladys Martinez and Dr. Casey Copen turned their family research into a prize-winning poster this May at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America in San Francisco. The poster, entitled, “The Weakening Link: The Sequencing of First Sex, First Marriage, and First Births Among Women in the U.S.: National Survey of Family Growth 1988-2010,” received first-place honors at one of the meeting’s poster sessions.

The poster looked at how the sequencing of first sex, first marriage, and first birth vary by Hispanic origin and race, and how these patterns have changed over time. Data came from four cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth between 1988 and 2010. Specifically, the poster (below) highlighted:

Trends over time in the sequencing of first sex, first marriage, and first birth, and differences by race
Trends over time in the cumulative age at first sex, first marriage, and first birth, and differences by race
Predictors of factors that increased the likelihood that a woman who had a premarital pregnancy would marry before the child was born

The study found that, during 2006-2010, the most common path for women was premarital first sex followed by marriage at some point in time. The second most common path was premarital sex followed by premarital birth. The percentage of women following this path grew from 13% in 1988 to 28% for 2006-2010—more than double.

The poster will be displayed as an entrant in the poster sessions at this year’s National Conference on Health Statistics, August 6-8, in Washington, DC.

Congratulations, Dr. Martinez and Dr. Copen!