Quality Assurance Approaches to Census 2000 Address Listing Efforts

• Activity Number: 100
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 12, 2002 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods*
• Author(s): Carrie Johanson*+ and Rebecca Piegari
• Affiliation(s): U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: quality assurance ; address listing ; continuous improvement

Abstract

The success of the decennial censuses relies heavily on the accuracy of our address listings. For Census 2000, many operations contributed to the development of the address list, including Address Listing, Block Canvassing, Reconciliation of Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA), Be Counted and Telephone Questionnaire Assistance Field Verification (BCTQAFV), and others. With a large, temporary workforce performing the listing activities, it was particularly important to have Quality Assurance (QA) measures in place to achieve quality results. Our QA objectives were to prevent errors due to lack of knowledge on the part of the listers, identify and correct completed work units that contain significant performance errors, and promote continuous improvement of performance during the operation. Qualifying observations, dependent QA operations, informal review, and office review were some of the components of the QA program that we used to meet the QA objectives. This paper looks at how we implemented these QA efforts and some of our lessons learned.