Impacting the World with Data:From a million data points to maps that tell the story OR Translating academic rigor into public information

Brian J. Grim, Ph.D.Senior Researcher

Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life

Washington, DC

Visiting Researcher

Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs (CURA)

Boston University

A peek at this presentation’s conclusion, which was made possible by a database:

– a finding involving the work of more than 50 demographers and social scientists around the globe

– released at IUSSP in Marrakech, Morocco

– later covered by all major news outlets (with differing slants), including the comedic ‘news’ show the Colbert Report

– here’s the Fox headline ...

First, the database ... and a related publication ...

Province-level data on religious affiliation ...

Province-level data on religious violence ...

The Price of Freedom Denied:Religious Persecution and Conflict in the 21st Century(Fall 2010)

Series: Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics

... and a less data-heavy related publication drawing on data from the ARDA as well ...

Now, the exciting part – managing and selecting the data that went into the Muslim population report (with the help of a web interface over an Access-type relational database) ...

◄ Back to country page

◄ Archiving religion-specific TFR, age-structure, migration & religiosity

89.60%90.74%88.70%88.71%Muslims

Other:

(Census)

Range Max:

(DHS)

Range Min:

(Pew GAP)

WRD

estimate:Bangladesh

WRD Best Estimate vs. Range of Estimates vs. Pew

The Pew Forum Report

Limited Interactive Maps & Tables

Impacting the World with Data

On the horizon with geo-coded religion-related violence data ...