2020 Census
Data Products
Demographic and Housing
Characteristics File
Katrina Baum Stone, Rapporteur
Committee on National Statistics
Division of Behavioral and
Social Sciences and Education
Proceedings of a Workshop
NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001
This study was supported by the U.S. Census Bureau. Support of the work of the Committee on National Statistics is provided by a consortium of federal agencies through a grant from the National Science Foundation (award number SES-1560294) and several individual contracts. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-69410-0
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-69410-8
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/26727
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. 2020 Census Data Products: Demographic and Housing Characteristics File: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26727.
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PLANNING COMMITTEE ON 2020 CENSUS DATA PRODUCTS: DEMOGRAPHIC AND HOUSING CHARACTERISTICS FILE
ELIZABETH E. GARNER (Co-Chair), Colorado Department of Local Affairs
V. JOSEPH HOTZ (Co-Chair), Duke University
RANDALL K. Q. AKEE, University of California, Los Angeles
ANUBHAV BAGLEY, Maricopa Association of Governments
DANAH BOYD, Microsoft Research
MARY A. CRAIGLE, Montana Department of Commerce
VICKIE M. MAYS, University of California, Los Angeles
MARTA TIENDA, Princeton University, Emeritus
JAN VINK, Cornell University
Study Staff
KATRINA BAUM STONE, Study Director
ANTHONY MANN, Program Associate
COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS
ROBERT M. GROVES (Chair), Office of the Provost, Georgetown University
LAWRENCE D. BOBO, Department of Sociology, Harvard University
ANNE C. CASE, School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Emeritus
MICK P. COUPER, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
DIANA FARRELL, JPMorgan Chase Institute, Washington, DC
ROBERT GOERGE, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
ERICA L. GROSHEN, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University
DANIEL E. HO, Stanford Law School, Stanford University
HILARY HOYNES, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley
DANIEL KIFER, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University
SHARON LOHR, School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Arizona State University, Emeritus
JEROME P. REITER, Department of Statistical Science, Duke University
NELA RICHARDSON, ADP Research Institute, Roseland, NJ
JUDITH A. SELTZER, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, Emeritus
C. MATTHEW SNIPP, School of the Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University
ELIZABETH A. STUART, Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Staff
MELISSA CHIU, Director
BRIAN HARRIS-KOJETIN, Senior Scholar
CONSTANCE F. CITRO, Senior Scholar
Reviewers
This Proceedings of a Workshop was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published proceedings as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the process.
We thank the following individual for her review of this proceedings: Vickie Mays, University of California, Los Angeles. We also thank staff member Ruth Cooper for reading and providing helpful comments on this manuscript.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the content of the proceedings nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this proceedings was overseen by Nicholas Nagle, Geography and Sustainability, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this proceedings was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the rapporteur and the National Academies.
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Acknowledgments
This proceedings is the main product of the workshop, which was intended to provide feedback to the U.S. Census Bureau on the fitness for use of tabulations in the proposed 2020 Census Demographic and Housing Characteristics (DHC) File. Data users were invited to evaluate a set of demonstration files that applied the TopDown Algorithm (TDA) to 2010 Census data, which is being developed to protect privacy in the 2020 DHC File. The demonstration files could be evaluated against the actual 2010 published data. As explained in Chapters 1 and 3, the workshop was held only two months after the demonstration files were released to accommodate the Census Bureau’s schedule for finalizing the TDA parameters for the 2020 DHC File.
The planning committee members worked extraordinarily hard to identify workshop participants who could prepare use cases in the short time available. They were ably assisted by countless individuals who devoted significant effort in using their networks to help identify and recruit presenters. This workshop would not have been possible without their efforts. Individuals who were especially instrumental with this outreach are Melissa Chiu and Constance F. Citro of the Committee on National Statistics staff, Paul Schroeder (Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics), Andrew Reamer (George Washington University), Mary Jo Hoeksema (Population Association of America), and Meeta Anand (Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights). Lastly, a debt of gratitude is owed to David Van Riper and his team at Integrated Public Use Microdata Series University of Minnesota, who
helped convert the 2010 DHC demonstration files into formats that assisted presenters in preparing their analyses.
Katrina Baum Stone
Study Director, Planning Committee on
2020 Census Data Products
Status Update on Population Estimates
4 Evaluation of the Demonstration Data on Age
Comparisons for Young Children
5 Evaluation of the Demonstration Data on Housing and Tenure
6 Evaluation of the Demonstration Data on Small Areas and Populations
Urban Growth and School Planning
Data Use Needs by Local Nonprofits
American Indians and Alaska Natives
7 Evaluation of the Demonstration Data in Public Health
Comparisons at County, Census Tract, and Block Levels
Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations
9 Observations on Use Cases and Needs
Strategies for Using the 2020 Decennial Data and Beyond
Reconsideration of How to Obtain Feedback
Options for Improving User Feedback
10 Statutory Requirements and Resource Allocation
Legislative Requirements in Texas
Case Study of Taxation Allocation
11 Reflections and Ideas for Moving Forward
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Boxes, Figures, and Tables
BOXES
1-2 2022 Call for Input (excerpt)
9-1 Guiding Questions for Decennial Data and Beyond Panel
11-1 Ideas for Moving Forward Offered by Planning Committee Members
FIGURES
3-1 The geographic hierarchy (“spine”)
3-2 Census Demographic and Housing Characteristics (DHC) File development and production timeline
4-1 Swapping and differential privacy rates for ages 4–5 years by population tract size
4-3 2010 published data vs. demonstration data: Age distribution for Brooklyn Census Tract 450
4-4 Age smoothing for females in a small county
4-5 Age smoothing comparing SF1 and May 2020 and March 2022 demonstration data
5-1 Median absolute error (MdAPE) in households with children
5-2 Median absolute error (MdAPE) for “large” households (5+ people)
6-2 Centennial school district enrollment–2021: Actual and forecasted
6-3 Average county-level discrepancy between median age with 2010 DHC and SF1 in years by 2013 RUCC
7-1 Total fertility rate for Texas counties by Urban Influence Code
7-3 County-level age-adjusted COVID-19 incidence rates by race and ethnicity
7-5 Change in age-adjusted rate of emergency department visits for asthma (2010)
7-6 Change in age-adjusted rate of hospitalizations for AMI (2010)
7-7 Keegan landfill site population maps
7-8 Arkla Terra Superfund population maps
9-1 Feedback on the Demographic and Housing Characteristics (DHC) File
TABLES
5-2 Mean Absolute Difference for DP Ratio vs. SF1 Ratio
5-5 Mean Error by Households with Children, Geographic Area, and Tenure Majority
5-6 Share of Tracts in the United States with Large Errors
6-1 Comparisons for Tract 511390135
6-2 2010 Comparisons for Corvallis, Oregon
6-3 Population Change in Manhattan Chinatown
6-4 Population Change in Buffalo, New York
6-5 Birth Rates to Single-Race AIAN Women in a County in 2010, with Non-DP and DP
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Acronyms and Abbreviations
ACS | American Community Survey |
AIAN | American Indian and Alaska Native |
BERT | Base Evaluation and Research Team |
CDC | U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention |
CEF | Census Edited File |
CIC | Census Information Center |
CNSTAT | Committee on National Statistics |
DBASSE | Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education |
DDHC | Detailed Demographic and Housing Characteristics (file) |
DEI | diversity, equity, and inclusion |
DHC | Demographic and Housing Characteristics (file) |
DSEP | Data Stewardship Executive Policy Committee |
FSCPE | Federal-State Cooperative on Population Estimates |
HUD | U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development |
IHS | Indian Health Service |
IPUMS | (originally) Integrated Public Use Microdata Series |
LGBTQ | lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer |
MALPE | mean algebraic percent error |
MdAPE | median absolute error |
NCES | National Center for Education Statistics |
NIH | National Institutes of Health |
NTA | Neighborhood Tabulation Areas |
PEP | Population Estimates Program |
P-TOPALS | Tool for Population Analysis Using Linear Splines |
PUMS | Public Use Microdata Series |
RDC | Research Data Center |
RUCC | Rural-Urban Continuum Code |
SDC | State Data Center |
SF1 | Summary File 1 |
Tab GRF-C | Tabulation Geographic Reference (file) |
TAZ | traffic analysis zone |
TDA | TopDown Algorithm |
USDA | U.S. Department of Agriculture |