Federal data are crucial to state and local governments, enabling them to assess the level of need in a community, to establish appropriate funding levels for programs, and to implement programs in a cost-effective manner. This article first demonstrates how data from the decennial census and American Community Survey have been used by a local government—New York City’s—to identify and target the population eligible for public health insurance but not enrolled. It then examines critical data issues that need to be resolved if local governments are to continue to receive data of the highest quality.
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Diffendal, Gregg, Rtia Petroni, and Andre Williams.2004. Meeting 21st century demographic data needs-Implementing the American Community Survey. Report 8: Comparison of the American Community Survey three-year averages and the census sample for a sample of counties and tracts. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.
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Gage, Linda.2004. Comparison of Census 2000 and American Community Survey 1999-2001 estimates- San Francisco and Tulare Counties California. Working Paper. Available from www.census.gov/acs/www./AdvMeth/acs_census/report.htm .
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Griffin, Deborah, and Sally Obenski.2002. Meeting 21st century demographic data needs-Implementing the American Community Survey. Report 2: Demonstrating survey quality. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.
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Hough, George, and David Swanson.2004. The 1999-2001 American Community Survey and the 2000 census-Data quality and data comparisons: Multnomah County, Oregon . Working Paper. Available from www.census.gov/acs/www./AdvMeth/acs_census/report.htm .
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Salvo, Joseph J., and Arun Peter Lobo .2003. Evaluating continuous measurement: Data quality in the Bronx test site of the American Community Survey. Journal of Economic and Social Measurement28 (4): 263-77.
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Salvo, Joseph J., and Arun Peter Lobo .2006. Moving from a decennial census to a continuous measurement survey: Factors affecting nonresponse at the neighborhood level. Population Research and Policy Review25 (3): 225-41.
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Van Auken, Paul, Roger B. Hammer, Paul R. Voss, and Daniel L. Veroff.2004. American Community Survey and census comparison-Final analytical report: Oneida and Vilas Counties, Wisconsin, Flathead and Lake Counties, Montana. Working Paper. Available from www.census.gov/acs/www./AdvMeth/acs_census/report.htm .
