INTRODUCTION
This document provides 20 standards that apply to Federal censuses and surveys whose
statistical purposes include the description, estimation, or analysis of the characteristics of
groups, segments, activities, or geographic areas in any biological, demographic, economic,
environmental, natural resource, physical, social, or other sphere of interest. The development,
implementation, or maintenance of methods, technical or administrative procedures, or
information resources that support such purposes are also covered by these standards. In
addition, these standards apply to censuses and surveys that are used in research studies or
program evaluations if the purpose of the survey meets any of the statistical purposes noted
above. To the extent they are applicable, these standards also cover the compilation of statistics
based on information collected from individuals or firms (such as tax returns or the financial and
operating reports required by regulatory commissions), applications/registrations, or other
administrative records.
Background
Standards for Federal statistical programs serve both the interests of the public and the needs of
the government. These standards document the professional principles and practices that Federal
agencies are required to adhere to and the level of quality and effort expected in all statistical
activities. Each standard has accompanying guidelines that present recommended best practices
to fulfill the goals of the standards. Taken together, these standards and guidelines provide a
means to ensure consistency among and within statistical activities conducted across the Federal
Government. Agency implementation of standards and guidelines ensures that users of Federal
statistical information products are provided with details on the principles and methods
employed in the development, collection, processing, analysis, dissemination, and preservation
of Federal statistical information.
In 2002, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in response to Section 515 of the
Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (Public Law 106-
554), popularly known as the Information Quality Act, issued government-wide guidelines that
“provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the
quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information)
disseminated by Federal agencies” (67 FR 8452-8460; February 22, 2002). Federal statistical
agencies worked together to draft a common framework to use in developing their individual
Information Quality Guidelines. That framework, published in the June 4, 2002, Federal
Register Notice, “Federal Statistical Organizations’ Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the
Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Disseminated Information” (67 FR 38467-38470),
serves as the organizing framework for the standards and guidelines presented here.
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The
framework for these standards and guidelines includes:
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The Federal Register notice included eight areas where statistical organizations set standards for performance.
The framework utilized here combines “Development of concepts and methods” with “Planning and design of
surveys and other means of collecting data” into the single section on “Development of concepts, methods, and
design.” The standards for these activities were closely linked and attempting to separate them into two distinct
sections would have resulted in some duplication of standards between sections. The only other change is the title
of Section 7, which was shortened to “Dissemination of Information Products” for convenience rather than
“Dissemination of data by published reports, electronic files, and other media requested by users” as it originally
appeared in the Federal Register notice.
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