The U.S. has a new way to mask census data in the name of privacy. How does it affect accuracy?

U.S. residents who fill out the census questionnaire every 10 years are told their answers will remain confidential. But that promise from the U.S. Census Bureau comes with a statistical caveat: The stronger the privacy shield, the less accurate the data. That trade-off, long familiar to researchers, became a hot-button issue after the government adopted a new approach to protecting privacy for the 2020 census. Many demographers worried the new method would degrade the quality of census data, which are used not just for academic studies, but also for drawing congressional districts and allocating federal funds. But neither the agency nor its critics knew by how much, kicking off a fierce debate over how the new approach compared with the previous method. Now, a study appearing this week in Science Advances provides the first-ever, independent hard numbers to answer that question. Experts say the findings could help the Census Bureau do a better job on the next census in 2030. They could also influence high-stakes legal battles over voting rights. Here’s a guide to understanding this highly technical analysis and why it matters. Why are census data important? Researchers use census data to paint a picture of the country’s changing demographics. Government officials at all levels use the information to determine the population eligible for federal programs ranging from health, nutrition, and housing benefits to highway cons...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research