Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released the Response Outreach Area Mapper (ROAM) web application. This interactive map makes it easier to identify areas that typically have low response rates for censuses and surveys.
Community planners and local officials can use this information to plan, focus and allocate resources for encouraging response to the 2020 Census. The tool also allows the Census Bureau to tailor outreach efforts and to plan resources, including hiring staff with the right language skills.
These efforts can lead to higher response rates for the 2020 Census, making the census more accurate and more efficient. Census results affect a community’s voice in government, how much funding the community receives, and how it plans for the future.
The ROAM tool provides tract-level data on the area’s low response score (predicted mail non-response rate) and information about its people and households from the American Community Survey, including poverty status, education level, race, Hispanic origin and language ability.
ROAM can also be used to:
- Identify areas where special outreach and promotion efforts could be considered to increase participation in the variety of surveys the Census Bureau conducts.
- Link spatial map data files to create thematic maps showing low response scores in conjunction with demographic data.
- Generate reports, cross tabulations and simple analyses of demographic data.
- Identify hard-to-count tracts by response score and according to specific parameters (e.g., tracts within a certain county).
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