Monday, May 9, 2011

Group Quarters Population Totals Released

The Kentucky State Data Center has 2010 Census Group Quarters data at the county, tract and block level available for download on the KSDC web site.  This advance release from the Census Bureau contains total population counts and does not include any characteristics of the population.  The release was  intended to help redistricting efforts by denoting where large group quarter populations reside in voting districts. You can find more information about this data release  from the Advanced Group Quarters News Release.

Some details from the Bureau's news release:

2010 Census Advance Group Quarters Summary File

The Census Bureau, in response to Federal and state officials, as well as other data users, is providing an early version of Table P-42 from the 2010 Census Summary File 1, showing the seven types of group quarters. No characteristics of the group quarters are provided. The institutionalized group quarters categories include correctional facilities for adults, juvenile facilities, nursing facilities/skilled-nursing facilities and other institutional facilities; while the non-institutionalized group quarters categories include college/university student housing, military quarters and other non-institutional facilities. Data are provided for states, counties, census tracts and blocks. This table is only available via the FTP, so will not be found in the American Fact Finder.

This early release of data on the group quarters population may be beneficial to many data users including those in the redistricting community who must consider whether to include or exclude certain populations in redrawing boundaries as a result of state legislation. It will permit state and local redistricting officials to overlay this file with the 2010 Census Redistricting Data (Public Law 94-171) Summary File data. Three states (Delaware, Maryland and New York) have legislation requiring use of group quarters data in their line drawing. Other states exclude military, and Kansas reassigns intrastate college students back to their home town.

In addition, this product may be useful in determining if a geocoding error has occurred. The Count Question Resolution (CQR) Program provides state, local, and tribal governments the opportunity to challenge their 2010 Census housing unit and group quarters counts. The CQR program begins June 1, 2011, prior to the release of the Summary File 1.

2010 Census Advance Group Quarters Summary File Technical Documentation [PDF] 4.85 MB

2010 Census Advance Group Quarters Summary File FTP Data

2010 Census Advance Group Quarters Microsoft Access Shells -- These shells (MS Access 2007 and MS Access 2003 versions) contain the file import specifications, example tables, an example block level query, and a brief data dictionary extract, to assist you with importing and extracting the data. These shells are used similarly to the ones in the instructions titled How to use Access Shells.pdf [PDF] 880 KB

Thursday, May 5, 2011

New Kentucky Demographic Profiles from the 2010 Census Released

The U.S. Census Bureau today released the Profile of General Population and Housing Characteristics: 2010 for the District of Columbia, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. The demographic profiles provide 2010 Census data on age and sex distributions, race, Hispanic or Latino origin, household relationship and type, the group quarters population, and housing occupancy and tenure (whether the housing occupant owns or rents). Throughout May, these profiles are being released on a rolling basis for all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

The profile includes more than 150 data items in all, plus percentage distributions. Highlights from the state data released today include:

Kentucky

The median age was 38.1.
  • The average household size was 2.45 people per household.
  • Among the state's occupied housing units, 68.7 percent were owned, compared with 31.3 percent that were rented.

In addition to the state-level data, demographic profiles are available for other areas down to the place/functioning minor civil division-level. Profiles for the nation, regions and divisions will be available at the end of May with the final states' releases.

The characteristics data found in the demographic profiles will be available for additional levels of geography, such as census tracts or blocks, as part of the next 2010 Census data product, Summary File 1, to be released on a state-by-state flow basis between June and August.

Accessing the Data

The demographic profiles can be found on the Census Bureau's American FactFinder website at .

A summary file version of the profile data is also available for users who want to download the data set for all of the geographies within the state and run their own analysis and rankings. The summary file contains two parts: a file with the geographic headers (in fixed-length ASCII format) and the data file (in comma-separated ASCII format). The summary file is available for download at <http://www2.census.gov/census_2010/03-Demographic_Profile/>.

For local context, contact your State Data Center: <http://www.census.gov/sdc/network.html>.