Blind data; why the life's gone out of the government's vital statistics.

• Author: Hamilton, David
• Position: Dealing with Department of Health and Human Services documents

Among the millions of documents spewed forth each year by the federal government is a glossy, 692-page tome from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) called Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives. The document lists hundreds of laudable health care goals for the coming millennium, such as reducing deaths from work-related injuries to 4 per 100,000 workers, or limiting HIV infections to no more than 800 per 100,000 people. Trouble is, the department doesn't say how it intends to get there from here. And even if the department's officials did have a plan, they couldn't possibly put it into effect--since by their own admission, they can't even guess at the size of one quarter of the problems they have nevertheless promised to address, and for a full two thirds lack the data to figure out if they are helping matters or making them worse.

For instance, the department wants to reduce drug-abuse-related emergency room visits by 20 percent over the next time years. Great idea. But how many such visits are there now? The department doesn't know. Nor does it know the number of adolescent suicide attempts (which the deparment wants to reduce by 15 percent) or the percentage of pediatricians who screen children for developmental problems (the goal: 80 percent) or the number of people with "inappropriately stored" weapons (Healthy People 2000 will cut that number, whatever it is, by 20 percent).

If it all sounds to you a bit like another episode of "Yes, Minister," bear in mind that the numbers those bureaucrats are merrily tossing about represent real people: teenagers shutting themselves in a New Jersey garage to drink in carbon monoxide, or a four-year-old Bronx boy shooting himself dead with his daddy's pistol. You'd think these are the sorts of problems Uncle Sam would be keeping his eye on. But then again, if he were, we'd all be able to tell when he wasn't doing anything to address them. Of course, statistics can't tell you everything about tragedies like these. But without numbers to give them some sense of direction and accountability, as the empty promises of Healthy People 2000 amply demonstrate, the government programs that might prevent such tragedies simply won't get anywhere.

In fact, it's a telling demonstration of the power of statistics that when they do exist, they can be more dangerous than when they don't. It's like the difference between having no bridge and having a bridge that drivers don't realize is about to collapse. If you pick apart any federal number, you'll probably find that it's derived from faulty assumptions or incomplete data, which means we are basing all sorts of decisions on lies. For instance, according to a recent story in The New York Times Magazine, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that it rejects 27 percent of all inspected seafood as spoiled or contaminated--a measure that suggests it's doing a thorough job of protecting consumers. So, feeling safe and sound, we cheerfully indulge in kippers for breakfast, tuna for lunch, sushi for supper ... until we read the fine print and learn that the FDA inspects no more than 2 to 4 percent of the total catch, presumably allowing large quantities of rotten fish to slip through.

Counted out

But maybe you never expected much from HHS in the first place, and maybe you don't like seafood. Missing or misleading statistics are hurting you anyway. The figures generated by the federal government's $1.9 billion statistics-collecting enterprise make their way into every nook and cranny of the government, from entitlement programs to law enforcement to trade policy--not to mention private businesses, local and...