During 2005-09, Sheila Bird was the Royal Statistical Society’s (RSS) vice-president for external affairs and introduced both the RSS’s statistical seminars for journalists and awards for statistical excellence in journalism: for which, in 2010, she was awarded the RSS’s Chambers Medal.

Following swine-flu, on which she wrote a series of articles for Straight Statistics, Sheila Bird has led the Royal Statistical Society’s campaign for legislation to end the late registration of deaths in England and Wales where fact-of-death is not registered for at least six months for one in five premature deaths (aged 5-44 years).

From 2006 to 2014, Sheila Bird and the late Colonel Clive Fairweather CBE, reported 20-weekly on military fatality rates in Aghanistan by nationality and cause.

In 2011, Sheila was appointed OBE for her services to social science and, in 2012, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.