Guidelines for Working With Small Numbers

1 Department of Health Agency Standards for Reporting Data with Small Numbers Revision Date: May 2018 Primary Contact: Cathy Wasserman, PhD, MPH, State Epidemiologist for Non-Infectious Conditions Secondary Contact: Eric Ossiander, PhD Purpose What is new, and how does this affect public health assessment? Scope of the "Standards for Working with Small Numbers " Summary Small Number Standard Reliability Recommendation Summary Graphic Background Why are Small Numbers a concern in public health assessment? What constitutes a breach of confidentiality? Why do we question the stability of statistics based on Small Numbers ? Why do we have a new standard? Working with Small Numbers General Considerations Assessing Confidentiality Issues Know the identifiers Examine numerator size for each cell Consider the proportion of the population sampled Consider the nature of the information How to Meet the Standard to Reduce the Risk of Confidentiality Breach General approach Aggregation Cell suppression Omission of stratification variables Exceptions to the Small Numbers Standard Considerations for Implementing Suppressio

need to better understand the relationships among environment, behavior and health have led to increased demand for information about small populations. These demands are often at odds with the need to protect privacy and confidentiality. Small numbers also raise statistical issues concerning accuracy, and thus usefulness, of the data.

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