Survey Analyst (VIRTUAL) - 2023 Summer APHIS MPRBS

At USDA, we are recommitting ourselves to the values of equity and inclusion rooted in justice and equal opportunity for our employees and those we serve.

 

 "The National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) is a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) program that performs national-level surveys of U.S. livestock and poultry management and health. Please check out our data products at https://www.aphis.usda.gov/nahms

Recently, NAHMS has moved away from static PDF reports to interactive Tableau dashboards for publishing study results, and we've been increasingly automating our data wrangling and data analysis processes using SAS, a SAS-callable software package called SUDAAN, and other statistical software. The intern would assist with several mini-projects themed around data automation and will regularly use SAS and SUDAAN throughout these mini-projects.

The mini-projects the intern will work on are (from most important to least important for NAHMS, but the intern's preference will also be taken into consideration):

(1) A printout of 95% confidence intervals is generated for every estimate in every table in a very long internal report to determine statistically significant differences among estimates. The goal for this project is to automatically identify the statistically significant differences in this report to save time having to manually read through the report.

(2) As part of an upcoming Federal requirement, metadata files need to be created for NAHMS' historical datasets, which date back to the 1990s. The won't take long for each NAHMS study and will give the intern the opportunity to look through lots of past NAHMS studies and become familiar with the statistical sampling and survey designs for each study.

(3) With NAHMS moving to Tableau dashboards for our data products, NAHMS has internally created advanced SAS macros to create CSV files of our data that can then be imported by Tableau. The intern would incorporate these SAS macros into existing SAS code from older NAHMS reports, especially in preparation for the upcoming NAHMS Sheep 2024 study which will feature a trends over time report of several NAHMS Sheep studies dating back to 1996.

(4) The intern would create a short info sheet(s) via an analysis of recently collected data from either the NAHMS Swine 2021, NAHMS Feedlot 2021, or NAHMS Bison 2022 studies. These info sheets are targeted at a more casual or lay audience than a standard NAHMS report and are important data products for the general public.

(5) Protecting the confidentiality of survey participants is a critical component of NAHMS studies. While NAHMS reports our data in aggregate, mathematical techniques exist that can crack individual respondent data from aggregate estimates in certain scenarios. To protect against this, NAHMS employs several number suppression rules to mute data output that could be tied back to an individual respondent. The number suppression process is currently semi-automated, and the intern would fully automate this process.

A NAHMS mathematical statistician will mentor the intern throughout their time with us. The statistician will provide a detailed description and background as to how the intern’s projects fits into the broader NAHMS study process, review associated statistical methodology, and be readily available to answer any questions or provide assistance with SAS coding, statistics, etc. to the intern.

We are a dynamic and friendly team composed of veterinary epidemiologists and statisticians who very much enjoy working with new students and teaching new skills. We regularly have students and recent graduates working with us."

"• Code in SAS and/or R to analyze data and to automate or add features to existing NAHMS processes

• Learn the inner workings and processes of the largest national animal health surveys in the U.S.

• Communicate well with mentor to resolve issues if troubleshooting is unsuccessful

• Regular use of Microsoft Word and Excel to examine reports and data"

Location:

 

  

For the past 27 years, USDA has partnered with HACU to provide internship opportunities for hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students. These internships provide valuable professional experience for students while also exposing students to the important work that is done at USDA. The students also make significant contributions to the sub-agencies.

 

This partnership with HACU represents a larger USDA strategy aimed at ensuring a diverse, prepared, and competitive workforce that is vital to establishing a sustainable agricultural future. As a result of their positive internship experiences and supportive and inclusive culture at USDA, many former HACU students are now members of the USDA permanent workforce.