Modernizing the U.S. Census (1995) / Chapter Skim
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B The Census Process
B The Census Process
Pages 228-238
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From page 228... ...
These activities were carried out over a period of time both concurrently and sequentially; however, the data collection process itself falls into four basic procedures essentially carried out sequentially, as follows: (1) developing a mailing list, that is, a list of addresses of all housing units in the country the list is in effect a master address control file; 228
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DEVELOPMENT OF MAILING LIST (MASTER ADDRESS CONTROL FILE) 1988 · Computerized address lists for nearly 60 million housing units (mostly for metropolitan areas)
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The first data collection method was mailout/mailback, used primarily in urban and suburban areas to enumerate about 84 percent of total housing units. The Census Bureau compiled an address list in advance, and the USPS delivered
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Here, no precensus address list was compiled, but the USPS delivered an unaddressed short-form questionnaire to each unit. Then census enumerators canvassed door to door, listing all housing units, collecting completed questionnaires or completing them as necessary, including for units that did not receive one.
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began opening in 1989 to prepare for their major activities in 1990. Also, 13 regional census centers opened to manage the 449 district offices for the data collection efforts in 1990.
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Both the processing offices and district offices used automated equipment to check in the forms by scanning a bar code on the return envelope. The associated listing in the address control file then could be coded to show a questionnaire had been received for that unit.
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for an emergency supplemental appropriation of about $1 10 million. Nonresponse Follow-Up For the nonresponse follow-up, enumerators were provided with a complete address list for their assignment area.
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. · During the search/match operation, forms received from various activities were checked against completed questionnaires to see if the persons on the forms needed to be added to the census questionnaire for the reported Census Day address.
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The Census Bureau provided local offices with a booklet explaining the program, a technical guide containing specific guidelines, and detailed census maps showing boundaries for tracts and blocks, so that local officials could compile their own data, especially housing unit estimates, at the block level for comparisons with the counts to be provided by the Bureau. Local offices were asked to provide "hard evidence" of possible discrepancies and enumeration problems at the ED level.
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For this program, the Census Bureau sent the involved local governments maps and preliminary housing counts developed from the address file so that these could be compared to local information. For those places where the local government identified blocks for which their count differed significantly from the preliminary census count, the Census Bureau sent enumerators to those blocks to conduct a recanvass.
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2Type 2 district offices covered the balance of mail areas; Type 3 district offices covered the conventional list/enumerate areas. REFERENCES Bureau of the Census 1991 Planning and Conducting the 1990 Decennial Census.
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