How the ACS gets it wrong: The story of the American Community Survey and a small, inner city neighborhood
How the ACS gets it wrong: The story of the American Community Survey and a small, inner city neighborhood
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DOI：
10.1016/j.apgeog.2013.08.013
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发表时间：
2013-12-01
影响因子：
4.9
通讯作者：
Fraser, James Curtis
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bazuin, Joshua Theodore;Fraser, James Curtis
2010年，几十年来第一次没有使用长格式的十年一次人口普查，取而代之的是美国社区调查(ACS)。虽然美国人口普查局已经收集了十多年的数据，但第一次人口普查结果是在2010年发布的。美国国家航空航天局根据滚动样本收集数据。据称，与十年一次的人口普查相比，它有许多优势，包括经常更新数据，总体成本更低，覆盖范围更广。然而，我们发现，ACS可以产生高度不准确的数据，部分原因是依赖于人口稀少社区的极少量样本。我们通过社区调查来探索这些动态，该调查复制了ACS的问题，同时采用了旧的十年人口普查长形式抽样策略，即从田纳西州纳什维尔单一市中心人口普查区域的六分之一家庭中请求信息。我们的结果表明，在其他感兴趣的变量中，ACS严重低估了附近的总人口和贫困人口的数量。通过对样本量很小的人口普查区域的数量进行检查，并将最近的美国人口普查结果与2010年十年一次的人口普查结果进行比较，我们发现，在这一单一区域中发现的问题在全国范围内都存在。此外，我们还考虑了从美国国家数据中心和其他数据来源获得的社区统计概况如何在这些社区实现广泛的行动，这些行动可能是有害的，因为数据不准确和/或缺乏背景。(C)2013爱思唯尔有限公司。保留所有权利。
In 2010, the long form Decennial Census was not used for the first time in several decades, replaced instead by the American Community Survey (ACS). While the ACS has been collecting data for more than a decade, the first census tract results were released in 2010. The ACS collects its data based on a rolling sample. It is purported to have many advantages over the Decennial Census, including frequently updated data, less overall cost, and better coverage. We have found, however, that the ACS can produce highly inaccurate data, in part because of reliance on extremely small samples in sparsely populated neighborhoods. We explore these dynamics through a community survey which replicates ACS questions while employing the old Decennial Census long form sampling strategy of requesting information from one in six households in a single inner city census tract in Nashville, Tennessee. Our results show that the ACS has grossly underestimated the total population and the number of people living in poverty in the neighborhood, among other variables of interest. Through an examination of the number of census tracts with very small sample sizes and a comparison of recent ACS results with the 2010 Decennial Census, we show that the problems identified in this single tract occur throughout the country. In addition, we consider how statistical profiles of neighborhoods derived from the ACS and other data sources enable wide ranges of action in those neighborhoods, action which can be harmful given inaccurate and/or decontextualized data. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.