Forecasting race/ethnicity proportions at city scale

Hello, first time poster here, interested in forecasting.

I am working with a city-sized population (~150k residents, ~30 tracts) in the San Francisco Bay Area, for which I can retrieve ACS population estimates by race/ethnicity (from B01003) for a couple of overlapping intervals (2011-2015, …, 2014-2018).

The proportions are fairly stable, but I’m more interested in the future — specifically, in 2021-2025 — than the past.

As an R user, I could try to adapt some generic forecasting tools, like those in Rob Hyndman's {fable} package, to generate estimates for the near future. But should I be guessing at which tools and approaches to use, or has someone already done a pretty robust job somewhere else that could be adapted or applied? (Note: not asking for R code, just recommendations for an approach.)

Methods that would generate predictive intervals, or at least some metric of uncertainty/confidence, would be ideal. All suggestions would be welcome! I'm hoping to be able to apply the same technique(s) to other city-sized regions in the future, even after Decennial counts become available.

Thank you in advance for your time and attention.

Very best,
David

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  • Hey David:

    Interesting question! There are a few different techniques you could try -- one would be some sort of linear-based forecast model to predict total population (from pop estimates) and ACS-derived proportions using single-year data (for city at large). The best reference manual for possible approaches is Smith, Tayman, and Swanson's State and Local Population ProjectionsMethodology and Analysis.

    For predicting demographic composition in small areas, I have a strong preference for some variant of the Hamilton-Perry method (see this recent article by Matt Hauer for more detail on Hamilton-Perry and some modifications to adjust for certain challenges: https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata20195). In my own work, I generally apply the predicted composition to a separately projected population total.

    Best,

    Becky

Reply
  • Hey David:

    Interesting question! There are a few different techniques you could try -- one would be some sort of linear-based forecast model to predict total population (from pop estimates) and ACS-derived proportions using single-year data (for city at large). The best reference manual for possible approaches is Smith, Tayman, and Swanson's State and Local Population ProjectionsMethodology and Analysis.

    For predicting demographic composition in small areas, I have a strong preference for some variant of the Hamilton-Perry method (see this recent article by Matt Hauer for more detail on Hamilton-Perry and some modifications to adjust for certain challenges: https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata20195). In my own work, I generally apply the predicted composition to a separately projected population total.

    Best,

    Becky

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