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How accurate is the 2020 Census?
Topics: Quantitative Methods
, United States
, Spatial Analysis & Modeling
Keywords: census, privacy, spatial data science, uncertainty Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract Day: Tuesday Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) Room: Virtual 30
Authors:
Nicholas N Nagle, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
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Abstract
The 2020 Decennial used a new procedure called "Differential Privacy" to protect the confidentiality of information about individual respondents. Every single table produced by the Census has been "noised" by adding random error. Using a tabulation of the 2010 Census using this procedure, we compare the accuracy of the noised data with the originally published 2020 data. We show the accuracy of various racial population counts, and at various scales, from census block to incorporated places to legislative districts and tribal areas. We describe principles for users to predict which tables are most likely to reliable.
