Vital Statistics Enhancement Team

1. Vital Statistics Enhancement Team Amy Symens Smith U.S. Census Bureau Linda Gage, California Gregg Williams, Alaska FSCPE, Research & Methodology Subcommittee FSCPE Mid-year Meeting March 28-29, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

2. Vital Statistics Enhancement Team • Census Bureau and FSCPE collaboration • 1st research project of this type. • Project designed to address FSCPE • recommendations and Census Bureau response • concerning the current processing of vital • statistics input data used to produce subnational • population estimates.

3. FSCPE Recommendations • FSCPE vital statistics inputs should be used in the estimates. • More current vital statistics inputs than NCHS • More accurate inputs by race and Hispanic-origin • Actual July-June annual period • PEP should • Pursue a data sharing agreement with NCHS for the FSCPE • Enhance annual vital statistics reports to learn more about effects of cut-off dates and timing of final data. • PEP and FSCPE Research and Methods Subcommittee should conduct joint research on NCHS and FSCPE vital statistics data and make further recommendations.

4. Census Bureau Response • Overall agreement with all recommendations and enthusiastic about a joint project. • Concerns raised: • Recommendation to use more current data that have not been previously requested. • Because FSCPEs may differ in their ability to provide these data we may have to design a new system to accommodate missing data. • While designing a new system is not insurmountable, it likely will require additional time in the processing.

5. Vital Statistics Enhancement Research • Objective: Design a process and methodology to efficiently use all the vital statistics data available from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the FSCPEs in the production of subnational population estimates. • Goals: • Streamline requests for data from FSCPE. • Examine NCHS/FSCPE differences and design a method to combine data drawing on the strengths of each data source. • Examine characteristics data. • Examine data for more current years.

6. Research Agenda & Schedule • 1. Review of NCHS & FSCPE raw birth & death data. Comparison to • subnational population estimates processing requirements. • End date: 2/3/05 • 2. Review of current method used to reconcile differences in the • NCHS & FSCPE data to create population estimates input data. • End date 2/24/05 • 3. Comparison of NCHS & FSCPE data. End date: 3/10/05-6/2/05 • 4. Review of the Data Collection Process Survey to gain insights into • cut-off dates & additional data availability. End date: 3/3/05 • 5. Testing, if changes are recommended. End date: 6/24/05 • 6. Preparation of report/recommendation. End date: 7/1/05

7. Comparison of NCHS/FSCPE Data • Evaluation tools: • National maps of outliers by year for births and deaths • Ranking of outliers: 2000 births • Regional maps based on ranking of 2000 births outliers • Census 2000 data for population under age 1 • Index of Dissimilarity: 2000 births • ID = ½ * {ABS(NCHS or FSCPE – Census)}

14. Ranking of Outliers: 2000 Births

15. Ranking of Outliers: 2000 Births •  Focus on 4 areas: • New Jersey and New York • DC Metro: DC, VA and MD • State of Georgia • Nevada, California and Arizona

20. Index of Dissimilarity: 2000 Births • Population estimates must reflect change in the population as if a census was taken. • To use birth certificate data it must capture the same universe as that captured by the census. • To measure differences use the Index of Dissimilarity to quantify the differences between each data source and the census age zero population.

21. Index of Dissimilarity: 2000 Births

22. Index of Dissimilarity: 2000 Births • In 22 states the NCHS index was smaller. • In 16 states the FSCPE index was smaller. • In 9 states both indexes were the same. • NCHS index larger than national index of 2.54 in: VA, IA, AR, GA, MT, WY, CO and AK • FSCPE index larger than national index of 2.59 in: WV, AR, IA, WI, WY, MT, CO, HI, and AK

23. Index of Dissimilarity: 2000 Births

24. Current Reconciliation Method • Goal is to draw on the strengths of each data source. • Current Reconciliation Method: • Remove counties with zero differences or counties where no FSCPE data was supplied so NCHS data is used. Sum counties • Rake FSCPE counties to the sum of counties in #1 • Rake NCHS data with characteristics to new county totals in #2. • Method draws on the strengths of each data source: • FSCPE st/co distributions NCHS characteristics data

25. Current Reconciliation Method In both 2001 and 2002 the majority of counties (54.1% and 50.6%) were removed from the rake process and in 2000 nearly forty-nine percent were removed. Of those counties that were raked, the rake factors for each year were very small, ranging from 1.00200 in 2002 to 1.00324 in 2000.

26. NCHS/FSCPE Births CY 2002

27. NCHS/FSCPE Input Data Comparison

30. FSCPE CY02/Census Bureau FY03 Comparison

31. NCHS CY02/Census Bureau FY03 Comparison

32. FSCPE FY03/Census Bureau FY03 Comparison

33. FSCPE or NCHS Input Births Compared to Census Bureau Output Births

35. NCHS/FSCPE Discrepancies in Births(California Counties adjacent to Nevada)

36. Census Bureau/FSCPE Joint Research • Found great consistency between NCHS and FSCPE vital statistics. • Identified and continue to analyze areas with large differences in NCHS/FSCPE vital statistics. • Identified processing methods that distort the vital statistics input data.

37. Goal for NCHS/FSCPE/Census Bureau Vital Statistics

38. US All Counties Vital Statistics 2000NCHS-FSCPE

39. US All Counties Vital Statistics 2001NCHS-FSCPE

40. US All Counties Vital Statistics 2002NCHS –FSCPE

41. Alaska County Births 2000-2002

42. Alaska County Deaths 2000-2002

43. Future Steps • Report/Recommendation by July 1, 2005 • Likely will not be included in 2005 vintage, but will be considered for 2006 vintage • Additional research needed on assignment of race/Hispanic origin in subnational estimates.