American Statistical Association (ASA)

Alexandria, Virginia, USA · Founded Boston, Massachusetts, November 27, 1839 · World's largest community of statisticians

Overview

The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the world's largest professional organization for statisticians and data scientists — founded on November 27, 1839 in Boston, Massachusetts, making it the second-oldest continuously operating professional society in the United States, behind only the Massachusetts Medical Society (1781). With approximately 19,000 members across academia, government, industry, and the private sector, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, the ASA describes itself as the "Big Tent for Statistics": a broad-based professional community that encompasses statisticians, data scientists, biostatisticians, econometricians, survey methodologists, and practitioners across every domain that uses quantitative methods. Its mission is to promote the practice and profession of statistics — through publications, conferences, education, professional development, and public advocacy for evidence-based decision-making.

The ASA is the natural American counterpart to the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) in the United Kingdom, and the two organizations share several joint ventures — including Significance magazine, published together since 2004, and the Real World Data Science platform. While the RSS is older (founded 1834 vs. 1839) and operates in a British context of Royal Charter and formal professional designation, the ASA is considerably larger by membership and arguably more influential in contemporary statistics through the reach of its flagship journals, most notably JASA (Journal of the American Statistical Association), which the Science Citation Index identified as the most highly cited journal in the mathematical sciences during 1991–2001.

Founding and Historical Context

The ASA was founded on November 27, 1839 in Boston by a group that included William Cogswell, Richard Fletcher, John Dix Fisher, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (the physician and writer, father of the Supreme Court Justice), and Lemuel Shattuck — with the immediate practical goal of improving the quality of data collection for the 1840 U.S. Census. The founding moment reflects the same Victorian impulse that drove the Statistical Society of London five years earlier: a conviction that social problems could be diagnosed and addressed through the systematic collection of reliable quantitative data. The ASA's early work focused on demography, vital statistics, and economic data — the same grounds that occupied its British counterpart.

The ASA grew steadily through the nineteenth century and expanded dramatically in the twentieth as statistics became central to the physical sciences, medicine, agriculture, economics, and eventually every quantitative discipline. Its early journal, launched in 1888 as the Publications of the American Statistical Association, became JASA and eventually the most cited journal in the mathematical sciences. The organization relocated from Boston to Washington, D.C. (and later Alexandria, Virginia) as the federal government became the largest employer of statisticians in the country. Today it operates across academia, industry, and government with a breadth that reflects statistics' expansion from a narrow technical specialty into a foundational discipline underlying virtually all empirical science.

Scale and Organization

~19,000

Members worldwide in academia, government, and industry

70+

Geographic chapters across the US and Canada

~30

Subject-area and industry sections

17

Journals (published directly or co-sponsored)

6,000+

Attendees at the annual Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM)

Journals

JASA

Journal of the American Statistical Association

Founded 1888 as the Publications of the ASA. Long considered the premier journal of statistical science. Covers statistical theory, methods, and applications across economic, social, physical, engineering, and health sciences. Published by Taylor & Francis. Most cited journal in the mathematical sciences, 1991–2001 (Science Citation Index).

TAS

The American Statistician

Peer-reviewed open access journal on statistics, statistical practice, education, and computing. Notably the venue for the landmark 2016 ASA Statement on p-Values and the 2019 follow-up "Moving to a World Beyond 'p < 0.05'" special issue. Published by Taylor & Francis.

JCGS

Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics

Co-sponsored with the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Interface Foundation of North America. Covers computational methods and data visualization in statistics.

JASA / JABES

Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics

Co-sponsored with the International Biometric Society. Covers quantitative methods in agriculture, ecology, biology, and environmental science.

JSSM

Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology

Co-sponsored with the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). Survey design, data collection, and analysis methods.

Significance

Significance (joint with RSS)

Co-published with the Royal Statistical Society since 2004. General audience magazine covering statistics and data science topics accessibly. The primary public-facing editorial product shared by the ASA and RSS.

The 2016 p-Value Statement: A Landmark in Scientific Self-Governance

The ASA's most consequential recent intervention in the broader scientific community was its March 2016 statement on p-values and statistical significance — the first time the organization had formally addressed the use and misuse of a specific statistical tool in published research. Published in The American Statistician and edited by Executive Director Ronald Wasserstein and Nicole Lazar, the statement emerged from widespread concerns in the scientific community about the "replication crisis": the documented failure of many published findings — in psychology, medicine, nutrition, and other fields — to hold up when studies were repeated.

The p-value, a measure of how surprising observed data would be if a null hypothesis were true, had become the default threshold for scientific publication: results with p < 0.05 were "statistically significant" and publishable; results above that threshold were not. The statement documented six specific principles for the correct use of p-values, emphasizing that they do not measure the probability that a hypothesis is true, that statistical significance does not imply practical significance, and that a single threshold cannot substitute for scientific judgment. In 2019, a follow-up special issue of The American Statistician — "Moving to a World Beyond 'p < 0.05'" — went further, with 43 articles from statisticians across the world arguing for fundamental changes in how statistical evidence is communicated and used in scientific publishing.

The two statements generated intense debate within and beyond the statistical community, were covered extensively in scientific and popular media, and have influenced ongoing reforms in journal publishing policies, statistical education, and research methodology across multiple fields. For Newsjunkie's purposes, the p-value statement episode is among the most significant examples of a professional scientific society directly intervening in scientific practice — using its institutional authority not to adjudicate a specific research controversy but to address a systemic methodological failure that was distorting the entire evidence base of empirical science.

Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM)

The Joint Statistical Meetings — held annually in late July or August, typically rotating between North American cities — is the largest gathering of statisticians in North America, typically drawing more than 6,000 attendees and featuring over 600 sessions. JSM is co-organized by the ASA with the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, two divisions of the International Biometric Society, and the Statistical Society of Canada. It has been held since the late nineteenth century, making it one of the oldest continuously operating scientific conferences in the United States. Activities include invited plenary and topical sessions, contributed paper presentations, poster sessions, more than 40 continuing education courses, a career placement service with 75+ employers, and an exhibit hall with 100+ statistical software and tools vendors. The ASA also hosts several other annual conferences including the Conference on Statistical Practice, the Spring Research Conference, and the International Conference on Health Policy Statistics.

Professional Credentials and Governance

The ASA offers two formal professional credentials. The Accredited Professional Statistician (PStat) — established in April 2010 — requires an advanced degree in statistics or a related quantitative field, five years of documented experience, and evidence of professional competence. The Graduate Statistician (GStat) — established April 2014 — is a preparatory accreditation for graduate students. Both are less structured than the UK's Chartered Statistician (CStat) pathway but represent a growing effort to formalize professional recognition in an American context where the statistical profession has historically not required licensure. Unusually, ASA Fellowship — granted annually to up to one-third of one percent of membership — does function as a mark of distinction for senior members with significant contributions to the field, unlike the open RSS Fellowship model.

The ASA is governed by a Board of Directors, and is organized into sections (subject-area and industry-area interest groups covering 22 sub-disciplines, from Bayesian Statistical Science to Survey Research Methods to Statistics and the Environment), chapters (78 geographic areas across the US and Canada), and more than 60 committees. Its stated commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) — formalized by the Board in November 2018 and updated through 2023 — includes renaming the R. A. Fisher Award and Lectureship in June 2020 to the COPSS Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship, following discussions about Fisher's views on race and eugenics.

American Statistical Association (ASA)
732 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
Phone: 703-684-1221 · Email: asainfo@amstat.org · amstat.org

President (2026–2027): Jeri Mulrow (Vice President & Sector Lead, Westat)

Executive Director: Ronald L. Wasserstein (since August 2007)

Founded: November 27, 1839, Boston, Massachusetts · Second-oldest continuously operating professional society in the US

Key journals: JASA · The American Statistician · JCGS · JABES · JSSM · Significance (with RSS) · 17 total

Key conferences: Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM, 6,000+ attendees) · Conference on Statistical Practice · Spring Research Conference · International Conference on Health Policy Statistics

Landmark: 2016 ASA Statement on p-Values · 2019 "Moving to a World Beyond 'p < 0.05'" special issue