Analysis of Questionnaire Errors in Survey Measurements of Census Coverage

• Activity Number: 73
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 12, 2002 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods*
• Author(s): Elizabeth Martin*+ and Robert Fay and Elizabeth Krejsa
• Affiliation(s): U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau

Abstract

In recent decades, the U.S. censuses have produced relatively accurate population counts, but the considerable importance of the results has driven the efforts to study and possibly correct the errors of coverage that occur. The 2000 Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (A.C.E.) attempted to measure the net error of the census, originally with the intention to correct the census counts for all purposes other than the apportionment of the House of Representatives. In turn, the accuracy of the A.C.E. was assessed by several evaluation studies, including the Evaluation Followup. Although many of the evaluations implied that the A.C.E. had been generally successful, the Evaluation Followup (EFU) indicated that the A.C.E. had seriously underestimated some types of erroneous enumerations in the census, including persons who lived elsewhere on census day. In October 2001, the U.S. Census Bureau decided not to incorporate the A.C.E. findings into the Census 2000 results.

Although there has been extensive statistical research to develop and improve dual-system estimates of census undercount, there has been less attention to the accuracy of the questionnaire measurements on which the stat