Incorporating Administrative Data in ACS Editing and Imputation Procedures

• Activity Number: 157 - Big Survey Meets Big Data: Integrating Administrative Data into the American Community Survey
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, July 29, 2019 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Sandra Clark*
• Companies: U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: administrative data; big data; data quality; item nonresponse; demographic data

Abstract

The U.S. Census Bureau is evaluating the use of administrative data for American Community Survey (ACS) editing and imputation procedures. Administrative data show great potential to improve survey data quality, particularly to assign values when a respondent does not provide an answer to a survey question. Assigning values based on ‘known’ data is expected to yield more accurate survey estimates than using statistical approaches. The first phase of this research is to incorporate administrative data on the basic demographic characteristics of age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin in the ACS editing and imputation procedures. This presentation provides an overview of the data sources used, the methodological approach adopted, preliminary results and next steps for this research.