Conference Program
Conference Flier
2017 ACS Data Users Conference
2015 ACS Data Users Conference
2014 ACS Data Users Conference
2014 ACS Workshop: Benefits and Challenges of the ACS
Sessions at Professional Meetings
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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)
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
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
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
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
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
Using the ACS to Analyze Poverty and Income
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
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
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
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)
Measuring ACS Data Quality
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
Innovative Uses of the ACS for Housing Analyses
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
Lightning Session
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
Advanced Tools Using ACS Data
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
Aggregating ACS Data for User-Defined Areas
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
Innovative Health Applications with ACS Data
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