17 January 2022

As a data and project management consultant, I spend at least 15% of my time performing analyses. During peak periods, that time can increase to 50% or more. The hardest part of the job sometimes is finding good client data, internal or external.

Having access to public data to integrate into projects often enables my team to work smarter, rather than harder. In fulfilling their missions. U.S. government agencies collect, clean and share massive amounts of data. Data accuracy is difficult to ensure at any level, but especially for organizations managing population data, such as the Census Bureau.

The United States Census Bureau

The Census Bureau has an ongoing, work in progress as the U.S. individual and business populations grow and shift geographically. The Bureau implements the American Community Survey, the Census of (state and local) Governments, Decennial Census of Population and Housing and the Economic Census (for businesses).

The data are collected and used to determine the distribution of Congressional seats to states as mandated by the U.S. Constitution:

• • Used to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives
• • Used to define legislature districts, school district assignment areas and other important functional areas of government

The 2020 Census suffered from undercounting due to pandemic related logistics and the former administration's decision to end the count early. To correct the data---yet not reallocate resources---tribal, state and local governments can request updates through the 2020 Census Count Question Resolution Operation (CQR).

While this process serves its purpose to improve data accuracy, their preferred method of ensuring data quality (and ours) is always to get it right the first time.

Lessons Learned from the 2020 U.S. Census

The outcomes of the Census reinforce our beliefs that accurate data depends on appropriate data tools, timing and the target audience.

Tools

The data collection method used should be appropriate to the type of data collected and the target audience. Even with time-tested tools, data accuracy relies heavily on timing and the target audience.

Timing

Start with a data collection mindset. Build in processes and tools that can scale up or down with your organization. For large companies, that means using Azure and AWS to build platforms and developing analytical models that collect, parse, and store data on an ongoing basis. For small organizations like Levvitate, it means using surveys and conversations to gather feedback, regularly analyzing web analytics data

Target Audience

The U.S. Census data is only as accurate as the American residents and citizens make it. Incomplete or incorrect data input will result in incomplete data output. Translation: bad data in = bad information out.

The Census Bureau ensures data quality in through their process:

• • the online questionnaire has prompts built in to help people respond completely and accurately.
• • The quality of the census takers’ work is checked.
• • As numbers are added up, the Bureau checks to make sure they were processed correctly and that they make sense by comparing them to other data.

Ensuring Data Quality

What can you do to ensure that you are affecting the collection of “good” data? Having a process, using the right tools, allowing the necessary time and understanding your target audience are essential, as are monitoring and taking the appropriate actions.

Making adjustments are necessary if the tools, timing or misunderstanding about the target audience becomes apparent. For example, if hiring or lending selection tools are consistently favoring one category (i.e., race, gender, locale, age) of applicants over another, despite similar characteristics that would otherwise make them equal (education, experience areas), then the people, the analysts and programmers need to be monitoring for this behavior and correcting it.

Concerns about the quality of your data? Maybe we can assist. Contact Levvitate us for a no-cost consultation. We are happy to offer assistance on a pro-bono basis for nonprofit organizations.

The U.S. Census is an important constitutionally-mandated national activity. Being counted is essential to ensure local, state and national resources are deployed where they are needed. This is large scale data-driven decision-making that impacts the entire U.S. population.