The Utility of Five-Year Averages from the American Community Survey for Bronx Neighborhoods

• Activity Number: 131
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, July 30, 2007 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Social Statistics Section
• Author(s): Joseph Salvo*+ and A. Peter Lobo and Adam Willett
• Companies: NYC Department of City Planning and NYC Department of City Planning and New York City Department of City Planning
• Keywords: American Community Survey ; Census ; small area data ; data quality ; administrative data ; survey data

Abstract

The capacity of the American Community Survey (ACS) to replace the decennial census long form is based on the validity and reliability of these data at the census tract level. This research builds on an earlier analysis of ACS test data for the Bronx that utilized special three-year averages for neighborhoods, which were census tract aggregates. The availability of census tract data for the Bronx, which are five-year averages, provides an ideal opportunity to ask about the quality and usefulness of these data, which will become available for all census tracts in 2010. This study evaluates the reliability of these census tract attributes against those provided by the 2000 Census. Further, we attempt to gauge the usefulness of these estimates by comparing the ACS five-year averages to administrative data at the census tract level for selected population, housing and economic items.