Margin of error for a new geography

I have geospacially clipped census blocks into a new geography to estimate  the population for the new area (new area/old area * population estimate). 

Is there a method to calculate the new margin of error for these new estimates?

Parents
  • If the areas are measured without error  you can multiply the Est and MoE by scale factor new_clipped_area/old_area. This assumes that the population is distributed uniformly across the large area. You can calculate the area of intersections using the "sf" R package.

    To do better than this you need to know the spatial distribution of the population within the large area.   For geographies larger than blocks one way to get is to use decennial census block level counts for the blocks that make up the larger area and the "clipped" area. You can then calculate the scale factor as population_in_clipped_area/population_in large area. Geocorr does this for the available types of geographies in their system. You can get "afact" scale factors based on area or population from the most recent decennial census.  The decennial census counts are measured without error.

    Dave Dorer

Reply
  • If the areas are measured without error  you can multiply the Est and MoE by scale factor new_clipped_area/old_area. This assumes that the population is distributed uniformly across the large area. You can calculate the area of intersections using the "sf" R package.

    To do better than this you need to know the spatial distribution of the population within the large area.   For geographies larger than blocks one way to get is to use decennial census block level counts for the blocks that make up the larger area and the "clipped" area. You can then calculate the scale factor as population_in_clipped_area/population_in large area. Geocorr does this for the available types of geographies in their system. You can get "afact" scale factors based on area or population from the most recent decennial census.  The decennial census counts are measured without error.

    Dave Dorer

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