Westat Inc. began as a partnership in 1961 with co-founders Edward C. Bryant, a University of Wyoming statistics professor, and two former students, James Daley and Donald King.

[13] Westat conducts studies on respondent knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors,[14][15] program evaluation,[16] physical, mental, and behavioral health,[17] academic achievement and literacy,[18] early childhood longitudinal studies,[19] child abuse and neglect,[20] medical treatments and outcomes,[21] exposure assessments,[22][23] and information management and communications solutions.

[29] Westat was the recipient of the Policy Impact Award by the American Association for Public Opinion Research in 2011 and 2014, for survey work that informed the Senate debate which led to the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and for the National Prison Rape Statistics Program as one of the contractors to U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), respectively.

[30] In September 2014, Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs discovered, during a scheduled audit of Westat, that the company systematically failed to provide equal employment opportunities to women applicants and applicants with other ethnicities for various positions between the period of October 2008 to September 2009.

Under the terms of the settlement, Westat paid $1,500,000 in back wages and interest to all affected applicants, made 113 job offers to the original class members as positions become available, corrected record-keeping violations and conducted internal audits.