Quality assurance
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- Articles and reports: 11-522-X201700014722Description:
The U.S. Census Bureau is researching ways to incorporate administrative data in decennial census and survey operations. Critical to this work is an understanding of the coverage of the population by administrative records. Using federal and third party administrative data linked to the American Community Survey (ACS), we evaluate the extent to which administrative records provide data on foreign-born individuals in the ACS and employ multinomial logistic regression techniques to evaluate characteristics of those who are in administrative records relative to those who are not. We find that overall, administrative records provide high coverage of foreign-born individuals in our sample for whom a match can be determined. The odds of being in administrative records are found to be tied to the processes of immigrant assimilation – naturalization, higher English proficiency, educational attainment, and full-time employment are associated with greater odds of being in administrative records. These findings suggest that as immigrants adapt and integrate into U.S. society, they are more likely to be involved in government and commercial processes and programs for which we are including data. We further explore administrative records coverage for the two largest race/ethnic groups in our sample – Hispanic and non-Hispanic single-race Asian foreign born, finding again that characteristics related to assimilation are associated with administrative records coverage for both groups. However, we observe that neighborhood context impacts Hispanics and Asians differently.
Release date: 2016-03-24 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X201700014723Description:
The U.S. Census Bureau is researching uses of administrative records in survey and decennial operations in order to reduce costs and respondent burden while preserving data quality. One potential use of administrative records is to utilize the data when race and Hispanic origin responses are missing. When federal and third party administrative records are compiled, race and Hispanic origin responses are not always the same for an individual across different administrative records sources. We explore different sets of business rules used to assign one race and one Hispanic response when these responses are discrepant across sources. We also describe the characteristics of individuals with matching, non-matching, and missing race and Hispanic origin data across several demographic, household, and contextual variables. We find that minorities, especially Hispanics, are more likely to have non-matching Hispanic origin and race responses in administrative records than in the 2010 Census. Hispanics are less likely to have missing Hispanic origin data but more likely to have missing race data in administrative records. Non-Hispanic Asians and non-Hispanic Pacific Islanders are more likely to have missing race and Hispanic origin data in administrative records. Younger individuals, renters, individuals living in households with two or more people, individuals who responded to the census in the nonresponse follow-up operation, and individuals residing in urban areas are more likely to have non-matching race and Hispanic origin responses.
Release date: 2016-03-24 - Articles and reports: 12-001-X201500114162Description:
The operationalization of the Population and Housing Census in Portugal is managed by a hierarchical structure in which Statistics Portugal is at the top and local government institutions at the bottom. When the Census takes place every ten years, local governments are asked to collaborate with Statistics Portugal in the execution and monitoring of the fieldwork operations at the local level. During the Pilot Test stage of the 2011 Census, local governments were asked for additional collaboration: to answer the Perception of Risk survey, whose aim was to gather information to design a quality assurance instrument that could be used to monitor the Census operations. The response rate of the survey was desired to be 100%, however, by the deadline of data collection nearly a quarter of local governments had not responded to the survey and thus a decision was made to make a follow up mailing. In this paper, we examine whether the same conclusions could have been reached from survey without follow ups as with them and evaluate the influence of follow ups on the conception of the quality assurance instrument. Comparison of responses on a set of perception variables revealed that local governments answering previous or after the follow up did not differ. However the configuration of the quality assurance instrument changed when including follow up responses.
Release date: 2015-06-29 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20050019441Description:
The Survey of Principals collects information on various topics related to the work of school principals. This article presents a brief description of this survey 's challenges and provides examples to illustrate the problems observed. The steps taken to resolve the challenges are described, and their impact on data quality is analyzed.
Release date: 2007-03-02 - 5. Growth models: an interesting approach to study the evolution of the health status of the elderly ArchivedArticles and reports: 11-522-X20050019491Geography: CanadaDescription:
Evaluating the impact of changes to services on the health status of frail elderly adults calls for longitudinal studies. Many subjects are however lost during follow-up because of the high incidence of death in this population. Traditional methods of repeated measures analysis are thus inappropriate since they ignore subjects with incomplete follow-up data. This leads to a considerable reduction in sample size and to biases.
Release date: 2007-03-02 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20010016238Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.
Research programs building on population-based, longitudinal administrative data and record-linkage techniques are found in England, Scotland, the United States (the Mayo Clinic), Western Australia and Canada. These systems can markedly expand both the methodological and the substantive research in health and health care.
This paper summarizes published, Canadian data quality studies regarding registries, hospital discharges, prescription drugs, and physician claims. It makes suggestions for improving registries, facilitating record linkage and expanding research into social epidemiology. New trends in case identification and health status measurement using administrative data have also been noted. And the differing needs for data quality research in each province have been highlighted.
Release date: 2002-09-12 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20010016246Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.
Samples sizes in small population areas are typically very small. As a result, customary, area-specific, direct estimators of Small Area Means do not provide acceptable quality in terms of Mean Square Error (MSE). Indirect estimators that borrow strength from related areas by linking models based on similar auxiliary data are now widely used for small area estimation. Such linking models are either implicit (as in the case of synthetic estimators) or explicit (as in the case of model-based estimators). In the Frequentist approach, the quality of an indirect estimator is measured by its estimated MSE while the posterior variance of the Small Area Mean is used in the Bayesian approach. This paper reviews some recent work on estimating MSE and the evaluation of posterior variance.
Release date: 2002-09-12 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20010016249Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.The United States' Census 2000 operations were more innovative and complex than ever before. State population totals were required to be produced within nine months and, using the coverage measurement survey, adjusted counts were expected within one year. Therefore, all operations had to be implemented and completed quickly with quality assurance (QA) that had both an effective and prompt turnaround. The QA challenges included: getting timely information to supervisors (such as enumerator re-interview information), performing prompt checks of "suspect" work (such as monitoring contractors to ensure accurate data capture), and providing reports to headquarters quickly. This paper presents these challenges and their solutions in detail, thus providing an overview of the Census 2000 QA program.
Release date: 2002-09-12 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20010016252Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.
The use of sample co-ordination in business surveys is crucial because it provides a way of smoothing out the survey burden. In many co-ordination methodologies, the random numbers representing the units are permanent and the sample selection method varies. In the microstrata methodology, however, it is the selection function that is permanent. On the other hand, random numbers are systematically rearranged between units for different co-ordination purposes: smoothing out the burden, updating panels or minimizing the overlap between two surveys. These rearrangements are made in the intersections of strata, known as microstrata. This microstrata method has good, mathematical properties and demonstrates a general approach to sample co-ordination in which births, deaths and strata changes are automatically handled. There are no particular constraints on stratification and rotation rates of panels. Two software programs have been written to implement this method and its evolutions: SALOMON in 1998, and MICROSTRAT in 2001.
Release date: 2002-09-12 - 10. Building quality in Census 2000 ArchivedArticles and reports: 11-522-X20010016265Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.
Several key strategies contributed to the success of the United States' Census 2000. This paper describes the strategy for the Address Building Process that incorporated numerous address lists and updated activities. The Field Interview Process created close to 900,000 jobs that needed to be filled. Two key strategies to achieve this are also described. The Formal Quality Control Process established principles to guide the quality assurance (QA) programs. These programs are presented, as are some of the examples of their implementation. The Coverage Measurement and Correction Process was used to increase census accuracy through the use of statistical methods. The steps taken to ensure Annual Capital Expenditures (ACE) accuracy and quality are described and the preliminary estimates of the undercount are reported.
Release date: 2002-09-12
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- Articles and reports: 11-522-X201700014722Description:
The U.S. Census Bureau is researching ways to incorporate administrative data in decennial census and survey operations. Critical to this work is an understanding of the coverage of the population by administrative records. Using federal and third party administrative data linked to the American Community Survey (ACS), we evaluate the extent to which administrative records provide data on foreign-born individuals in the ACS and employ multinomial logistic regression techniques to evaluate characteristics of those who are in administrative records relative to those who are not. We find that overall, administrative records provide high coverage of foreign-born individuals in our sample for whom a match can be determined. The odds of being in administrative records are found to be tied to the processes of immigrant assimilation – naturalization, higher English proficiency, educational attainment, and full-time employment are associated with greater odds of being in administrative records. These findings suggest that as immigrants adapt and integrate into U.S. society, they are more likely to be involved in government and commercial processes and programs for which we are including data. We further explore administrative records coverage for the two largest race/ethnic groups in our sample – Hispanic and non-Hispanic single-race Asian foreign born, finding again that characteristics related to assimilation are associated with administrative records coverage for both groups. However, we observe that neighborhood context impacts Hispanics and Asians differently.
Release date: 2016-03-24 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X201700014723Description:
The U.S. Census Bureau is researching uses of administrative records in survey and decennial operations in order to reduce costs and respondent burden while preserving data quality. One potential use of administrative records is to utilize the data when race and Hispanic origin responses are missing. When federal and third party administrative records are compiled, race and Hispanic origin responses are not always the same for an individual across different administrative records sources. We explore different sets of business rules used to assign one race and one Hispanic response when these responses are discrepant across sources. We also describe the characteristics of individuals with matching, non-matching, and missing race and Hispanic origin data across several demographic, household, and contextual variables. We find that minorities, especially Hispanics, are more likely to have non-matching Hispanic origin and race responses in administrative records than in the 2010 Census. Hispanics are less likely to have missing Hispanic origin data but more likely to have missing race data in administrative records. Non-Hispanic Asians and non-Hispanic Pacific Islanders are more likely to have missing race and Hispanic origin data in administrative records. Younger individuals, renters, individuals living in households with two or more people, individuals who responded to the census in the nonresponse follow-up operation, and individuals residing in urban areas are more likely to have non-matching race and Hispanic origin responses.
Release date: 2016-03-24 - Articles and reports: 12-001-X201500114162Description:
The operationalization of the Population and Housing Census in Portugal is managed by a hierarchical structure in which Statistics Portugal is at the top and local government institutions at the bottom. When the Census takes place every ten years, local governments are asked to collaborate with Statistics Portugal in the execution and monitoring of the fieldwork operations at the local level. During the Pilot Test stage of the 2011 Census, local governments were asked for additional collaboration: to answer the Perception of Risk survey, whose aim was to gather information to design a quality assurance instrument that could be used to monitor the Census operations. The response rate of the survey was desired to be 100%, however, by the deadline of data collection nearly a quarter of local governments had not responded to the survey and thus a decision was made to make a follow up mailing. In this paper, we examine whether the same conclusions could have been reached from survey without follow ups as with them and evaluate the influence of follow ups on the conception of the quality assurance instrument. Comparison of responses on a set of perception variables revealed that local governments answering previous or after the follow up did not differ. However the configuration of the quality assurance instrument changed when including follow up responses.
Release date: 2015-06-29 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20050019441Description:
The Survey of Principals collects information on various topics related to the work of school principals. This article presents a brief description of this survey 's challenges and provides examples to illustrate the problems observed. The steps taken to resolve the challenges are described, and their impact on data quality is analyzed.
Release date: 2007-03-02 - 5. Growth models: an interesting approach to study the evolution of the health status of the elderly ArchivedArticles and reports: 11-522-X20050019491Geography: CanadaDescription:
Evaluating the impact of changes to services on the health status of frail elderly adults calls for longitudinal studies. Many subjects are however lost during follow-up because of the high incidence of death in this population. Traditional methods of repeated measures analysis are thus inappropriate since they ignore subjects with incomplete follow-up data. This leads to a considerable reduction in sample size and to biases.
Release date: 2007-03-02 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20010016238Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.
Research programs building on population-based, longitudinal administrative data and record-linkage techniques are found in England, Scotland, the United States (the Mayo Clinic), Western Australia and Canada. These systems can markedly expand both the methodological and the substantive research in health and health care.
This paper summarizes published, Canadian data quality studies regarding registries, hospital discharges, prescription drugs, and physician claims. It makes suggestions for improving registries, facilitating record linkage and expanding research into social epidemiology. New trends in case identification and health status measurement using administrative data have also been noted. And the differing needs for data quality research in each province have been highlighted.
Release date: 2002-09-12 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20010016246Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.
Samples sizes in small population areas are typically very small. As a result, customary, area-specific, direct estimators of Small Area Means do not provide acceptable quality in terms of Mean Square Error (MSE). Indirect estimators that borrow strength from related areas by linking models based on similar auxiliary data are now widely used for small area estimation. Such linking models are either implicit (as in the case of synthetic estimators) or explicit (as in the case of model-based estimators). In the Frequentist approach, the quality of an indirect estimator is measured by its estimated MSE while the posterior variance of the Small Area Mean is used in the Bayesian approach. This paper reviews some recent work on estimating MSE and the evaluation of posterior variance.
Release date: 2002-09-12 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20010016249Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.The United States' Census 2000 operations were more innovative and complex than ever before. State population totals were required to be produced within nine months and, using the coverage measurement survey, adjusted counts were expected within one year. Therefore, all operations had to be implemented and completed quickly with quality assurance (QA) that had both an effective and prompt turnaround. The QA challenges included: getting timely information to supervisors (such as enumerator re-interview information), performing prompt checks of "suspect" work (such as monitoring contractors to ensure accurate data capture), and providing reports to headquarters quickly. This paper presents these challenges and their solutions in detail, thus providing an overview of the Census 2000 QA program.
Release date: 2002-09-12 - Articles and reports: 11-522-X20010016252Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.
The use of sample co-ordination in business surveys is crucial because it provides a way of smoothing out the survey burden. In many co-ordination methodologies, the random numbers representing the units are permanent and the sample selection method varies. In the microstrata methodology, however, it is the selection function that is permanent. On the other hand, random numbers are systematically rearranged between units for different co-ordination purposes: smoothing out the burden, updating panels or minimizing the overlap between two surveys. These rearrangements are made in the intersections of strata, known as microstrata. This microstrata method has good, mathematical properties and demonstrates a general approach to sample co-ordination in which births, deaths and strata changes are automatically handled. There are no particular constraints on stratification and rotation rates of panels. Two software programs have been written to implement this method and its evolutions: SALOMON in 1998, and MICROSTRAT in 2001.
Release date: 2002-09-12 - 10. Building quality in Census 2000 ArchivedArticles and reports: 11-522-X20010016265Description:
This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.
Several key strategies contributed to the success of the United States' Census 2000. This paper describes the strategy for the Address Building Process that incorporated numerous address lists and updated activities. The Field Interview Process created close to 900,000 jobs that needed to be filled. Two key strategies to achieve this are also described. The Formal Quality Control Process established principles to guide the quality assurance (QA) programs. These programs are presented, as are some of the examples of their implementation. The Coverage Measurement and Correction Process was used to increase census accuracy through the use of statistical methods. The steps taken to ensure Annual Capital Expenditures (ACE) accuracy and quality are described and the preliminary estimates of the undercount are reported.
Release date: 2002-09-12
Reference (11)
Reference (11) (0 to 10 of 11 results)
- Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19990015648Description:
We estimate the parameters of a stochastic model for labour force careers involving distributions of correlated durations employed, unemployed (with and without job search) and not in the labour force. If the model is to account for sub-annual labour force patterns as well as advancement towards retirement, then no single data source is adequate to inform it. However, it is possible to build up an approximation from a number of different sources.
Release date: 2000-03-02 - Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19990015658Description:
Radon, a naturally occurring gas found at some level in most homes, is an established risk factor for human lung cancer. The U.S. National Research Council (1999) has recently completed a comprehensive evaluation of the health risks of residential exposure to radon, and developed models for projecting radon lung cancer risks in the general population. This analysis suggests that radon may play a role in the etiology of 10-15% of all lung cancer cases in the United States, although these estimates are subject to considerable uncertainty. In this article, we present a partial analysis of uncertainty and variability in estimates of lung cancer risk due to residential exposure to radon in the United States using a general framework for the analysis of uncertainty and variability that we have developed previously. Specifically, we focus on estimates of the age-specific excess relative risk (ERR) and lifetime relative risk (LRR), both of which vary substantially among individuals.
Release date: 2000-03-02 - 3. An evaluation of data fusion techniques ArchivedSurveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19990015666Description:
The fusion sample obtained by a statistical matching process can be considered a sample out of an artificial population. The distribution of this artificial population is derived. If the correlation between specific variables is the only focus the strong demand for conditional independence can be weakened. In a simulation study the effects of violations of some assumptions leading to the distribution of the artificial population are examined. Finally some ideas concerning the establishing of the claimed conditional independence by latent class analysis are presented.
Release date: 2000-03-02 - Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19990015670Description:
To reach their target audience efficiently, advertisers and media planners need information on which media their customers use. For instance, they may need to know what percentage of Diet Coke drinkers watch Baywatch, or how many AT&T customers have seen an advertisement for Sprint during the last week. All the relevant data could theoretically be collected from each respondent. However, obtaining full detailed and accurate information would be very expensive. It would also impose a heavy respondent burden under current data collection technology. This information is currently collected through separate surveys in New Zealand and in many other countries. Exposure to the major media is measured continuously, and product usage studies are common. Statistical matching techniques provide a way of combining these separate information sources. The New Zealand television ratings database was combined with a syndicated survey of print readership and product usage, using statistical matching. The resulting Panorama service meets the targeting information needs of advertisers and media planners. It has since been duplicated in Australia. This paper discusses the development of the statistical matching framework for combining these databases, and the heuristics and techniques used. These included an experiment conducted using a screening design to identify important matching variables. Studies evaluating and validating the combined results are also summarized. The following three major evaluation criteria were used; accuracy of combined results, statibility of combined results and the preservation of currency results from the component databases. The paper then discusses how the prerequisites for combining the databases were met. The biggest hurdle at this stage was the differences between the analysis techniques used on the two component databases. Finally, suggestions for developing similar statistical matching systems elsewhere will be given.
Release date: 2000-03-02 - Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19980015018Description:
This paper presents a method for handling longitudinal data in which individuals belong to more than one unit at a higher level, and also where there is missing information on the identification of the units to which they belong. In education, for example, a student might be classified as belonging sequentially to a particular combination of primary and secondary school, but for some students, the identity of either the primary or secondary school may be unknown. Likewise, in a longitudinal study, students may change school or class from one period to the next, so 'belonging' to more than one higher level unit. The procedures used to model these stuctures are extensions of a random effects cross-classified multilevel model.
Release date: 1999-10-22 - 6. A latent class model for the transition from school to working life in presence of missing data ArchivedSurveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19980015024Description:
A longitudinal study on a cohort of pupils in the secondary school has been conducted in an Italian region since 1986 in order to study the transition from school to working life. The information have been collected at every sweep by a mail questionnaire and, at the final sweep, by a face-to-face interview, where retrospective questions referring back to the whole observation period have been asked. The gross flows between different discrete states - still in the school system, in the labour force without a job, in the labour force with a job - may then be estimated both from prospective and retrospective data, and the recall effect may be evaluated. Moreover, the conditions observed by the two different techniques may be regarded as two indicators of the 'true' unobservable condition, thus leading to the specification and estimation of a latent class model. In this framework, a Markov chain hypothesis may be introduced and evaluated in order to estimate the transition probabilities between the states, once they are corrected or the classification errors. Since the information collected by mail show a given amount of missing data in terms of unit nonresponse, the 'missing' category is also introduced in the model specification.
Release date: 1999-10-22 - 7. Evaluating nonresponse adjustment in the Current Population Survey (CPS) using longitudinal data ArchivedSurveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19980015026Description:
The purpose of the present study is to utilize panel data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to examine the effects of unit nonresponse. Because most nonrespondents to the CPS are respondents during at least one month-in-sample, data from other months can be used to compare the characteristics of complete respondents and panel nonrespondents and to evaluate nonresponse adjustment procedures. In the current paper we present analyses utilizing CPS panel data to illustrate the effects of unit nonresponse. After adjusting for nonresponse, additional comparisons are also made to evaluate the effects of nonresponse adjustment. The implications of the findings and suggestions for further research are discussed.
Release date: 1999-10-22 - Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19980015027Description:
The disseminated results of annual business surveys inevitably contain statistics that are changing. Since the economic sphere is increasingly dynamic, a simple difference of aggregates between n-l and n is no longer sufficient to provide an overall description of what has happened. The change calculation module in the new generation of annual business surveys divides overall change into various components (births, deaths, inter-industry migration) and calculates change on the basis of a constant field, assigning special importance to restructurings. The main difficulties lie in establishing subsamples, reweighting, calibrating according to calculable changes, and taking account of restructuring.
Release date: 1999-10-22 - Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19980015028Description:
We address the problem of estimation for the income dynamics statistics calculated from complex longitudinal surveys. In addition, we compare two design-based estimators of longitudinal proportions and transition rates in terms of variability under large attrition rates. One estimator is based on the cross-sectional samples for the estimation of the income class boundaries at each time period and on the longitudinal sample for the estimation of the longitudinal counts; the other estimator is entirely based on the longitudinal sample, both for the estimation of the class boundaries and the longitudinal counts. We develop Taylor linearization-type variance estimators for both the longitudinal and the mixed estimator under the assumption of no change in the population, and for the mixed estimator when there is change.
Release date: 1999-10-22 - Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X19980015029Description:
In longitudinal surveys, sample subjects are observed over several time points. This feature typically leads to dependent observations on the same subject, in addition to the customary correlations across subjects induced by the sample design. Much research in the literature has focussed on modeling the marginal mean of a response as a function of covariates. Liang and Zeger (1986) used generalized estimating equations (GEE), requiring only correct specification of the marginal mean, and obtained standard errors of regression parameter estimates and associated Wald tests, assuming a "working" correlation structure for the repeated measurements on a sample subject. Rotnitzky and Jewell (1990) developed quasi-score tests and Rao-Scott adjustments to "working" quasi-score tests under marginal models. These methods are asymptotically robust to misspecification of the within-subject correlation structure, but assume independence of sample subjects which is not satisfied for complex longitudinal survey data based on stratified multi-stage sampling. We proposed asymptotically valid Wald and quasi-score tests for longitudinal survey data, using the Taylor Linearization and jackknife methods. Alternative tests, based on Rao-Scott adjustments to naive tests that ignore survey design features and on Bonferroni-t, are also developed. These tests are particularly useful when the effective degrees of freedom, usually taken as the total number of sample primary units (clusters) minus the number of strata, is small.
Release date: 1999-10-22
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