A First Validation of Demographic Small Area Estimates

Matt Ruther, University of Colorado at Boulder
Galen Maclaurin, University of Colorado at Boulder
Stefan Leyk, University of Colorado at Boulder
Barbara Buttenfield, University of Colorado at Boulder
Nicholas Nagle, University of Tennessee

This study details a validation of a methodology which spatially allocates Census microdata to census tracts, based on known, aggregate tract population distributions. Due to confidentiality restrictions in accessing confirmatory data from current Censuses, a procedure for validating the methodology must be implemented prior to accessing the confidential data. This study uses historical Census data, for which a 100% count of the full population is available at a fine spatial resolution, to develop this procedure and to assess allocation behavior under different model specifications. The spatial allocation is performed using a microdata sample of records drawn from the full 1880 Census enumeration and synthetic summary files created from the same source. The estimates from the allocation are then validated against the values from the 1880 100% count. The results indicate that the validation procedure provides useful statistics, allowing evaluation of the spatial allocation and identifying optimal configurations for model parameterization.