Request for Non-Substantive Change Justification

Request for a Non-Substantive Change to the Generic Clearance for 2020 Census Tests to Research the Use of Automation in Field Data Collection Activities OMB No. 0607-0971

Purpose

The Census Bureau is requesting approval to conduct address verification fieldwork on approximately 150 addresses in the 2014 Census Test areas of Washington, D.C. and Maryland. This fieldwork will provide the verification of the existence and census block location of living quarters addresses from the use of geographic reference materials in an office-based operation. Gathering the data will help to complete the 2020 Non-ID Research and Testing team’s research and analysis efforts for the 2014 Census Test. In addition, this work will serve to help the Census Bureau in an effort to reduce cost for the 2020 Census by avoiding fieldwork traditionally necessary to perform address confirmation.

Background

The Census Bureau is exploring methods for verifying the existence and census block location of living quarters addresses using geographic reference materials in an office-based operation.  This work will serve as the basis for longer-term efforts to reduce cost for the 2020 Census by avoiding fieldwork traditionally necessary to perform address confirmation for the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program and eligible cases from Non-ID Processing. The LUCA program is an opportunity for local, state and tribal governments to review the inventory of living quarters addresses maintained by the Census Bureau for their jurisdiction. Any addresses added by participants in the LUCA program must be verified by Census staff. “Non-ID Processing” refers to address matching and geocoding for Census responses that lack a preassigned Census identification code. Any address from these “Non-ID” responses which do not match to a valid address record in the Census inventory must be verified separately, similar to the process for LUCA.

The goal of the research is to provide preliminary metrics to determine the effectiveness of available geographic reference sources and the time it will take to verify an address using these sources to determine an address’s existence, location, and use (residential or commercial). Census Bureau staff recently conducted an initial review on a sample of addresses within the 2014 Census Test areas in Washington, D.C. and Maryland. The review consisted of staff examining each of the addresses assigned to them using reference sources. The reviewer then recorded the address’s results for existence, location, and use. The reviewer also entered the time it took to complete each address review.

Proposed field canvass of addresses

Upon completion of the review, the next stage will be to field canvass a total of 150 addresses in the Washington, D.C. and Maryland area. The field canvass will use Headquarters staff to determine ground truth of address’s existence, location, and use. The status assigned in the field operation will be compared to the results of the office review for our analysis.

The analysis of these results will be used to determine what tools, or groups of tools, can determine an address’s existence, location, and use to varying degrees of confidence. The information will also help to estimate the approximate time it takes to conduct a review of individual record. Finally, the information collected will be used to develop a set of procedures for future tests and estimate the resources needed for future tests.

Schedule

The proposed Office-Based Address Verification field canvass will occur between August 17 and August 28, 2015.

Burden

No burden to the public.

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