Nearly 300 ACS data users attended the 2019 ACS Data Users Conference, held May 14-15, 2019, at the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, DC. PRB organized the conference in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau and with guidance from an ACS Data Users Group Steering Committee. The program brought together more than 50 contributed presentations by ACS data users, invited sessions with Census Bureau staff, Census Bureau product demonstrations, informal meetups, and opportunities for networking. 

PDF versions of the conference presentations are available below. You can also view recordings of the plenary sessions on Updates on the ACS and 2020: Agility in Action and Dissemination of ACS Data: Looking Ahead.

Updates on the ACS and 2020 Census: Agility in Action

Moderator: Linda A. Jacobsen, PRB

Steven Dillingham, Director, U.S. Census Bureau

James B. Treat, Assistant Director for Decennial Census Programs, U.S. Census Bureau (Treat.pdf)

Jennifer M. Ortman, Assistant Division Chief for Survey Methods and Measures in the American Community Survey Office, U.S. Census Bureau (Ortman.pdf)

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ACS Resources and Tools

Moderator: Emilia Istrate, George Washington Institute of Public Policy

Data.Census.Gov Demo – Preview the New Dissemination Platform in Development  Tyson Weister, U.S. Census Bureau

Still Special After All These Years: The Census Transportation Planning Products Program  Penelope Weinberger, AASHTO

Implementing the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification System into the American Community Survey  Lynda Laughlin, Julia Beckhusen, Ana Montalvo, and Rochelle Cooper, U.S. Census Bureau

An Overview of the State Data Center Network and Updates on New ACS Resources Offered by the Census Bureau’s Premier Local Partners  Gregg Bell, Institute for Rural Health Research, The University of Alabama

The Role of the ACS in the Distribution of Federal Funding  Andrew Reamer, George Washington University

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Using the ACS to Study Racial, Ethnic, and Geographic Variations in Health

Moderator: Shawn J. Bucholtz, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

AskCHIS Neighborhood Edition (NE)©: Using ACS Data to Construct and Visualize Small Area Estimates for the California Health Interview Survey  Todd Hughes, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research

Exploring Social Determinants of Health by Race and Ethnicity in Medicare Using ACS-CMS Linked Data  Shondelle Wilson-Frederick, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; and Sharon R. Ennis, Department of Veterans Affairs

How HRSA is Leveraging ACS and CDC Data for Small Area Estimates and Geographic Visualizations of Substance Use Outcomes  Mark Carrozza, Anuradha Jetty, Jennifer Rankin, and Jene Grandmont, American Academy of Family Physicians

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ACS Data for Rural and Tribal Communities

Moderator: Lance George, Housing Assistance Council

Using Administrative Data to Improve ACS Small Area Estimates: Experimental Synthetic Data for Rural Alaska Communities  Matthew Berman and Lance Howe, University of Alaska Anchorage

Across the Rural-Urban Universe: Two Continuous Indices of Settlement Patterns for ACS Microdata  Jonathan Schroeder, Jose Pacas, and David Van Riper, University of Minnesota

What is Tribal Citizenship? Using the American Community Survey to Describe Tribal Identity  Evelyn Immonen, Housing Assistance Council

Breaking Ground with a Tribal Community Survey: Building on an ACS Foundation  Celia Stall-Meadows and Leah Shearer, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

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Combining ACS With Other Survey or Administrative Data

Moderator: Stanislav (Stas) Kolenikov, Abt Associates

Opioids and the Labor Market  Mark Schweitzer, Dionissi Alliprantis, and Kyle Fee, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Human Capital Outflows: Selection into Migration from the Northern Triangle  Giselle Del Carmen, Interamerican Development Bank; and Liliana Sousa, World Bank

The Child Opportunity Index 2.0  Clemens Noelke, Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, Erin Hardy, Nick Huntington, and Nancy McArdle, Brandeis University

Using Citizenship from the ACS to Adhere to the Voting Rights Act for Districting and Redistricting: A Report from the Field  Andrew Beveridge, Queens College and Graduate Center CUNY

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Developing Estimates and Projections Using ACS Data

Moderator: Joseph J. Salvo, New York City Department of City Planning

Estimating Local Area Population by Housing Unit Method and ACS Data  Joe Francis, Cornell University

On the Use of the ACS to Estimate County Migration Flows by Age  Jan Vink, Cornell University

A Look to the Future: Demographic Projection Using ACS and Other Data for Fairfax County, Virginia  Xuemei Han and Fatima Khaja, Fairfax County, Virginia

Estimating Intercensal Household Size in New York City's Neighborhoods  Annette Jacoby and Joseph Salvo, Population Division at the New York City Department of City Planning

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Using the ACS to Analyze Poverty and Income

Moderator: Emilia Istrate, George Washington Institute of Public Policy

Helping States Designate and Explore Opportunity Zones Using ACS Data  Erika Rivera, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.

Using the ACS to Track the Changing Geography of Poverty Over Time: Insights from the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC)  Devon Yee, Initiative for a Competitive Inner City

Using ACS Microdata to Compute Shelter Poverty  Bryan Grady, South Carolina State Housing Finance and Development Authority 

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Using ACS Data to Measure Disparities in Internet Access

Moderator: Jason R. Jurjevich, Portland State University

Online Behavioral Health Screening and Internet Access  Kathleen Fox and Kelly Boettcher, Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health

Using the ACS’s New 5-Year Estimates for Internet Subscriptions to Better Understand the Lack of Broadband Infrastructure in Rural America  Austin Moser, Housing Assistance Council

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Using ACS Data in the Classroom

Moderator: Katherine Nesse, Seattle Pacific University

Preparing Tomorrow’s ACS Users: Teaching Undergraduate Students About Social Inequality Using the American Community Survey  Melissa Barfield, McKendree University

Using the American Community Survey in Undergraduate Courses  William H. Frey and John P. DeWitt, Social Science Data Analysis Network, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor  

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Dissemination of ACS Data: Looking Ahead

Moderator: Mark Mather, PRB

Innovating Data Privacy for the American Community Survey  Rolando A. Rodríguez, Research Mathematical Statistician, U.S. Census Bureau (Rodríguez.pdf)

Vision and Future Plans for the Census Bureau’s Data Dissemination Platform  Zach Whitman, Chief Data Officer, U.S. Census Bureau (Whitman.pdf)

Discussant  Constance F. Citro, Senior Scholar, Committee on National Statistics, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Citro.pdf)

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Measuring ACS Data Quality

Moderator: Joseph J. Salvo, New York City Department of City Planning

How Accurate Are ACS Tract and Block Group Totals?  Matt Schroeder, Metropolitan Council – Twin Cities

Comparing Administrative Data to ACS Estimates of Income and Wealth  Katherine Nesse, Seattle Pacific University

What Can the Current ACS Data Tables Tell Us About Housing and Migration?  Jeff Hardcastle, Nevada Department of Taxation

Evaluating the Reliability of ACS Data for Transportation Planning  Addison Larson, Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission

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Innovative Uses of the ACS for Housing Analyses

Moderator: Lance George, Housing Assistance Council

Using ACS Data to Profile Today’s Homebuyers and Sellers  Nadia Evangelou, National Association of Realtors

Identifying HUD-Assisted Housing Units Within the American Community Survey: An Overview of the Process and Use  Emily Molfino, U.S. Census Bureau; and Shawn Bucholtz, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Insights from a New Merge of FHA Single Family Data and the ACS  Daniel Marcin, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Where Families with Children Use Housing Vouchers: A Comparative Look at the 50 Largest Metropolitan Areas  Alicia Mazzara, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; and Brian Knudsen, Poverty and Race Research Action Council

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Lightning Session

Moderator: Katherine Nesse, Seattle Pacific University

The City Health Dashboard: An Innovative Online Resource for Population Health Improvement  Miriam Gofine, Shoshanna Levine, and Marc Gourevitch, NYU School of Medicine

Social Determinants, an Integral Part of Public Health Reporting  Justin Crow and Kira Walker, Virginia Department of Health, Office of Health Equity

ACS Interactive Mapping Interface - Data That's Easy to Use  Michelle Riordan-Nold and Ilya Ilyankou, Connecticut Data Collaborative

Calculating Medians for Combined Geographies  Matt Schroeder, Metropolitan Council – Twin Cities

Neighborhood Data for Social Change  Elly Schoen, USC Price Center for Social Innovation

Producing Neighborhood Statistics with ACS Blockgroup Data  Cliff Cook, City of Cambridge, Massachusetts

360 View at Ever-Changing Rental Landscape in the U.S.  Liang Tian, CoreLogic

Using ACS Data for Accountability in Utility Policy and Planning  Heather Pohnan, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

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Advanced Tools Using ACS Data

Moderator: Jason R. Jurjevich, Portland State University

Integrating ACS Data into a Population Health Profiler to Improve Clinical Practice  Mark Carrozza, Anuradha Jetty, Jené Grandmont, Dave Grolling, Jessica McCann, Jennifer Rankin, and Michael Topmiller, American Academy of Family Physicians

Time Series of ACS Data: A New Resource from IPUMS NHGIS  Jonathan Schroeder, IPUMS, University of Minnesota

Spark for Social Science: Efficiently Combining ACS Data with Big Data Sources  Graham MacDonald, Kyle Ueyama, and Jeffrey Levy, Urban Institute; Alex Engler and Sarah Armstrong, University of Chicago

Using ACS Data to Create Data Visualizations  R. Chase Sawyer, U.S. Census Bureau

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Aggregating ACS Data for User-Defined Areas

Moderator: Shawn J. Bucholtz, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Using ACS Census Tract and New York City Affordable Housing Data to Explore Relationship Between Affordable Housing Income Limits and Neighborhood Incomes  Sarah Stefanski, New York City Independent Budget Office

SuperTracts for Portland, Oregon  Richard Lycan, Portland State University

Build Your Own ACS Data Profile: Improving the Accessibility and Customization of the American Community Survey Data for Minnesota Communities  Ellen Wolter, Wilder Research

The National Equity Research Database (NERD)  Clemens Noelke, Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, and Nick Huntington, Brandeis University

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Innovative Health Applications with ACS Data

Moderator: Stanislav (Stas) Kolenikov, Abt Associates

Integrating ACS Data with Electronic Health Records: Using Community Vital Signs to Investigate Health-Related Outcomes in Vulnerable Populations  Sophia Giebultowicz, Jon Puro, and Stuart Cowburn, OCHIN; John Heintzman, Miguel Marino, Jorge Kaufmann, David Ezekiel-Hererra, and Katie Fankhouser, Oregon Health and Sciences University

A Framework for Evaluating Potential Differences in Health Outcome Rates Generated from Multiple Population Sources  Samantha Lindsey-Wotiz, Carter Consulting, Inc; and Heather Strosnider, Centers for Disease Control

The Art of Listening: Working with an Advisory Committee to Improve Outreach and Communication to Reach the Remaining Uninsured in Minnesota  Brett Fried, Kathleen Call, Elizabeth Lukanen, Karen Turner, and Cynthia Pando, University of Minnesota