Barbara Lepidus Carlson
Associate Director of Statistical Services and Senior Statistician

As lead sampling statistician and task leader on these projects, Carlson is responsible for sample design and implementation, creating sampling and analysis weights, calculating response rates, estimating design effects, and ensuring overall data quality. In addition, she is responsible for producing technical documentation of the methodology using language that is understandable by nonstatisticians. She is well versed in complex sample designs, including the use of variance estimation techniques appropriate for such designs.

In addition to her expertise in sampling and weighting survey data, Carlson has directed a number of survey projects at Mathematica. These projects include several rounds of the Community Tracking Study Household Survey, now known as the Health Tracking Household Survey, for which she served as project director, and the Evaluation of the Cash and Counseling Demonstration, for which she served as survey director. The Health Tracking Household Survey is a periodic telephone survey of the U.S. population designed to provide a sound information base for decision making by health care leaders. It does so by collecting information on how the health system is evolving across the nation and how those changes affect people. The Evaluation of the Cash and Counseling Demonstration was an award-winning randomized study in which frail Medicaid enrollees, or those with disabilities, received a monthly cash allowance to purchase personal assistance services and related goods, with the goal of increasing consumers’ control over their personal care. In director roles such as these, Carlson is the primary point of communication with clients and is responsible for ensuring that the surveys are conducted on time, within budget, and according to high quality standards.

Carlson has authored and presented numerous technical, methodological, and subject-matter papers at the annual Joint Statistical Meetings as well as other conferences, and has presented in-house seminars to nonstatisticians on topics such as weighting and response rates. She frequently serves as a statistical quality assurance reviewer on Mathematica projects and proposals. She has an M.A. in mathematics/statistics from Boston University.