Reducing Response Burden in the American Community Survey Proceedings of a Workshop (2016) / Chapter Skim
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4 Using Administrative Records to Reduce Response Burden
4 Using Administrative Records to Reduce Response Burden
Pages 39-54
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From page 39... ...
respondents and highlighted the need to consider information from alternative data sources, such as administrative records, in place of items on the questionnaire. Further, the paper suggested that the Census Bureau generate information from a merger of responses to any remaining survey questions and the alternative data.
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From page 40... ...
She highlighted three main points of interest in using administrative records with household surveys: reduce burden, make the surveys more efficient, and improve data quality. Several Census Bureau surveys are now exploring the use of administrative records in an effort to reduce content and, therefore, burden.
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From page 41... ...
The aim of these administrative record initiatives is to obtain access to rich sources of information for the household surveys, as well as for the decennial census, on populations that are often hard to count. Other administrative data are acquired from third-party vendors.
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From page 42... ...
The third method is a hybrid -- combining records with the information that has been collected to fill in missing data or to incorporate the records into the estimate in a way that results in an estimate built on administrative data or third-party data as well as on respondent-provided information. O'Hara reported that the ACS research program has focused on a series of variables (associated with ACS questions)
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From page 43... ...
also found high match rates between ACS data and data present in the third-party sources. Despite these promising initial results, O'Hara said challenges exist in using administrative records.
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The ACS frame has addresses (maintained with a master address file unit number) that are based on the physical location of the interview, but administrative data may have post office box or rural route identification.
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From page 45... ...
Finally, O'Hara said, the Census Bureau would need to make sure of federal agency buy-in because the federal stakeholders for these questions would need to understand the impact of this change of record implementation. Comments on the Use of Administrative Records to Reduce Burden and Improve Quality Following O'Hara's presentation, Paul Biemer (RTI International)
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From page 46... ...
Use of Administrative Records to Reduce Burden and Improve Quality: A Discussion Michael Davern (NORC at the University of Chicago) stated that substitution is a viable long-run solution for the ACS to reduce respondent burden, but more immediate solutions to improve quality could be put into place very quickly.
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From page 47... ...
Based on the findings of his research, Davern recommended that ACS data products should incorporate administrative data to reduce burden and improve quality, keeping in mind, however, that incorporating administrative data will tend to affect the time series data because the error structure will change. General Discussion A participant agreed that it will be important to have a continuous program of examining the models and looking to update them, because data sources will improve over time, which, in turn, will affect the models that need to be updated.
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From page 48... ...
Another participant raised the issue of obtaining permission from respondents to link survey and administrative records. The participant suggested a need for communication with household reporters when there will be substitution for item nonresponse or wholesale replacement of some answers.
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From page 49... ...
Referring to previous studies based on linking the 2010 census and administrative data, she cautioned it would be difficult to develop standards. ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS AND THE ACS: FUTURE DIRECTIONS This session focused on further uses and definitions of administrative records and future directions for this area of inquiry.
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From page 50... ...
Additionally, she suggested that the Census Bureau build a community that understands what the issues are, that works with the ACS staff to build an administrative records system and that also brings ACS production staff into creating
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Approaches to Implementing Administrative Data Frauke Kreuter suggested three key points or what she termed rules of thumb for guiding a program designed to increase the role of administrative records as a means to reduce burden: know the inferential goal, dare to combine imperfect data, and empower top-to-bottom teams that work on the issues that have been identified. She elaborated on the three points.
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From page 52... ...
Machine Learning, Administrative Data, and the ACS Kreuter also spoke on behalf of Rayid Ghani about a course on big data cotaught by her, Ghani, and Lane. Kreuter highlighted that survey esearchers r already do machine learning but with different tools, so what is needed is language bridging.
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From page 53... ...
There are also a variety of other data sources at the Census Bureau that could be added into these tasks, such as administrative records sources like Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics, IRS data, and other federal programmatic data. Clearly, there will also be new data sources, such as GPS data (useful to determine commuting patterns)
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From page 54... ...
A participant observed that privacy advocates urge drawing a line between federal administrative data and nonfederal data, as there are different issues in terms of the government accessing federal data or nonfederal data. Privacy advocates say the public has great concerns with the government accessing nonfederal data.
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