Research Reports

Additional Results from a Nationwide Matching of 2000 Census Data

Michael Ikeda and Edward Porter

KEY WORDS: Census Unduplication, Within Response Modeling, Record Linkage

ABSTRACT

A nationwide unduplication procedure is being considred for the 2010 Census. One potential problem is the possibility of finding large numbers of false positives, especially when matching above the county level. To help evaluate the extent of this problem, the matching and modeling procedures are being run on the data from the 2000 Census.

This report provides an overview of the results from Within Response Modeling, which evaluates households with multiple links, and of an analysis of the resulting Residual Person links. As expected, name frequency does not seem to have much effect for links accepted in Within Response Modeling, while most of the problem with apparent false matches in the Residual Person links seems to be concentrated in the most common surnames and the most common Hispanic surnames, especially for matches outside the state. In contrast, for given names there does not appear to be a strong effect of name frequency on false matches.

CITATION:

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Research Division

Created: March 5, 2008
Last revised: March 5, 2008