Change and the 2020 Census Not Whether But How (2011) / Chapter Skim
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Change and the 2020 Census: Not Whether But How
Change and the 2020 Census: Not Whether But How
Pages 5-28
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From page 5... ...
.1 First, the temporary staff conducted census operations and interviewed respondents outside the dense urban areas -- covering less than half of the total population but the vast majority of the land area of the nation. Second, the staff carried out the costly operation of knocking on doors and following up with households that did not return the mail questionnaire.
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From page 6... ...
that will provide basic quality metrics for the census continues into the early months of 2011. However, although the 2010 census continues, it is not too early to turn attention to the census in 2020.
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From page 7... ...
Between February and August 2010, panel members and staff conducted 58 site visits to local census offices, regional census centers, and data capture facilities in order to obtain information on current census operations with an eye toward future improvements; see Appendix B for a listing. A subgroup of the panel also visited the headquarters of Statistics Canada in Ottawa in May 2010 to discuss the use of the Internet for data collection in Canada's 2006 and 2011 censuses, as well as the Statistics Canada approach to research and testing.
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From page 8... ...
Consequently, our panel's report serves to amplify and extend some of the themes from the CPEX panel's study. B RESEARCH PLANS FOR THE 2020 CENSUS At steps during the first year of our work, the panel reviewed initial suggestions by the Census Bureau for their research plan leading to the 2020 census.
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From page 9... ...
First, we suggest that research and development energies be focused under four headings: Recommendation 1: The Census Bureau should focus its re search and development efforts on four priority topic areas, in order to achieve a lower cost and high-quality 2020 census: • Field Reengineering -- applying modern operations engi neering to census field data collection operations to make the deployment of staff and the processing of operational data more efficient; • Response Options -- emphasizing multiple modes of re sponse to the census for both respondent convenience and 4 See National Research Council (2010:App.
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From page 10... ...
• By "lack of commitment," we mean that the Bureau seems to have largely shied from taking more than an exploratory position to these four priority areas -- not wanting to be locked into any one design too early, which is understandable, but ultimately conveying a sort of half heartedness about major changes in approach. The argument that "no one knows what X will look like in 2020" -- in which, in varying dis cussions, X has been "the Internet," "mail delivery," "administrative records," "commercial records," "geography," and others -- is unde niably true.
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From page 11... ...
. Continuing to ask whether the Bureau should retool its field technical infrastructure or whether administrative records should play a role in the 2020 census is not the right approach; it seems to be grounded in the notion that a single fix or a single tweak in census approach will be sufficient to drive down 2020 census costs.
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From page 12... ...
panel devoted considerable attention to explaining the growth in census cost between the 1970 and 1990 censuses, finding itself unable to directly account for some three-fourths of the total increase. That panel ultimately concluded that the increase was largely driven by the Census Bureau "pouring on resources in highly labor-intensive enumeration efforts to count every last person," in response to demands for highly accurate small-area data, at the same time as public cooperation with the census dipped and measured net undercount actually increased from 1980 to 1990.
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From page 13... ...
Although NRFU is the single largest field operation, other major field operations also involve the major deployment of temporary staff: in support of the 2010 census, such operations included the complete Address Canvassing operation to verify address list entries in 2009, a series of operations to establish contact with and then count at group quarters (nonhousehold) locations, and the deployment of enumerators to either deposit questionnaires or conduct interviews in areas of the country where mail delivery of questionnaires was not feasible.
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From page 14... ...
The technical systems that assign field staff must properly synchronize with systems for handling multiple response modes to the census form, the degree to which administrative records data may be used in census operations directly affects the scope of field operations and the level of follow-up necessary, and field systems are of little use if they do not reflect current and accurate geographic features and address information. Accordingly, a fresh approach to field automation can be difficult because the task is so large and extensive, and so it is not neatly compartmentalized into a single "project." But, arguably, the key difficulty in field reengineering is illustrated by the record of experience leading to the 2010 census.
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From page 15... ...
5 Our predecessor Panel on Research on Future Census Methods -- whose final report, issued in 2004, we reference in this section -- forecast the problems that burst forth in 2008, stating that the handheld development effort would go awry without early attention to requirements and functionality rather than specific forms of devices. "A second risk inherent with the [handheld computer]
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From page 16... ...
3. Construct the physical technical infrastructure using the reengineered logical architecture: Neither the as-was architecture model nor any of the candidate to-be models are, or should be, exact drafts of fin ished computer hardware or software systems.
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From page 17... ...
the comprehensive systems of the Census Bureau, including the ongoing American Community Survey (ACS) , the Bureau's other current demographic surveys, its geographic support systems, and its economic census programs as well as the decennial -- facilitating ways for feedback or technical improvements in one part of the Bureau to improve the others.
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From page 18... ...
that could negatively impact the response rate as well as concerns from pilot testing that offering Internet response as an option did not significantly increase overall response rates. Acknowledging the Bureau's stance, the previous panel pointedly remarked that "the panel does not second-guess that decision, but we think that it is essential to have a full and rigorous test of Internet methodologies in the 2010 CPEX" (National Research Council, 2010:206)
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From page 19... ...
Conducted every five years by Statistics Canada, the Canadian census permitted online response in 2006 and achieved roughly a 20 percent Internet response rate -- including considerably higher-than-anticipated Internet take-up rates in more rural provinces, where planners had not expected heavy Internet saturation (National Research Council, 2010:294–295)
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From page 20... ...
and port over, as appropriate to the decennial census context. F ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS: SUPPLEMENTING MULTIPLE CENSUS OPERATIONS A significant wild card in planning for the 2020 census is the potential role of administrative data -- records compiled from other agencies of federal, state, tribal, or local governments, as well as records available from commercial sources.
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From page 21... ...
Rather, it is currently rebuilt anew each year, using new vintages of the underlying source data files that are intended to match the March/April reference time of the decennial census to the greatest extent possible. Consequently, year-to-year dynamics in the database are as-yet unexplored (save for comparison of the aggregate record counts to see how "close" in size the compiled StARS database is relative to the Census Bureau's national-level intercensal population esti 7 Specifically, the sources named in the notice are "agencies including, the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and from the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, the Selective Service System, and the U.S.
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From page 22... ...
If executed fully, the proposed StARS–2010 census matching study -- and ongoing Census Bureau research on administrative data quality and uses -- is much more than an ambitious scaling-up of the AREX 2000 work. The study is the critical research activity in the area of administrative records and should be a critical proving ground, and we enthusiastically support its continuance.
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From page 23... ...
Matched administrative records and census data would also facilitate necessary study of data quality from both sources, including the accuracy of race and Hispanic-origin data from administrative data and the degree of correspondence of "household" membership in administrative data (persons affiliated with a particular address) with the census "usual residence" concept.
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From page 24... ...
panels observed, "a decennial census is fundamentally an exercise in geography" -- its core constitutional mandate is to realign the nation's electoral geography and its final data spotlight the nation's civic geography, describing "how and where the American public lives and how the characteristics of small geographic areas and population groups have changed with time." Accordingly, another National Research Council (2004a:57) panel concluded, without exaggeration, that the quality of the Census Bureau's geographic resources -- 8 On the significance of these concerns, as in the development of Internet response options, comparison of experience with other national statistics offices -- particularly Canada -- could be instructive.
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From page 25... ...
. Ultimately, the Bureau proceeded with a complete Address Canvassing operation -- sending field enumerators to every block to verify address information and collect geographic operations, in the one 2010 census operation that was able to make use of handheld computers.
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From page 26... ...
In particular, we welcome the expressed indication of moving toward continuous improvement of geographic resources over the whole decade, rather than gambling too heavily on one-time operations like the 2009 Address Canvassing round or the comprehensive mid-2000s TIGER realignment work. That said, we support the Bureau's GSS Initiative work with a significant catch -- the Bureau's geographic work early in the decade should include serious attention to quality metrics for both MAF and TIGER.
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From page 27... ...
report discussed a framework for modeling census quality using both MAF/TIGER and census operational data as inputs, and that work may suggest possible directions. Related to another core research area, another priority for geographic work is to prepare for the possible use of administrative records data in geographic update operations.
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From page 28... ...
. Our charge is focused on the decennial census and its specific operations, but we think it entirely appropriate to support the use of the MAF in all of the regular current surveys; updates and improvements to MAF/TIGER based on regular use of those systems ultimately accrue to the quality of the census.
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