Coverage and Completeness in the Census 2000 Supplementary Survey

• Activity Number: 397
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 15, 2002 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods*
• Author(s): Michael Starsinic*+ and Keith Albright
• Affiliation(s): U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: Census 2000 Supplementary Survey ; American Community Survey ; coverage ; sample completeness

Abstract

The Census 2000 Supplementary Survey (C2SS) was conducted in 2000 and surveyed approximately 700,000 housing units in 1,203 counties. It collected data very similar to the decennial census long form, and tested the feasibility of conducting a large scale national survey to collect long form type data during a census year. The C2SS used the same data collection methods and instrument as the American Community Survey (ACS), which collects long form type data on a monthly basis, and is intended to replace the decennial census long form with full implementation planned in 2003.

This paper evaluates coverage and sample completeness in the C2SS/ACS for a number of different demographic groups, and make comparisons to the Current Population Survey and the decennial census long form. Sample completeness is a measure of how well the survey performs in initially reaching the population, relative to the decennial census. Coverage measures how well the survey estimates the population totals after the application of nonresponse adjustment factors in the weighting.