scholarly journals Proposed U.S. Census Bureau Differential Privacy Method is Biased Against Rural and Non-white Populations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Mueller ◽  
Alexis R Santos-Lozada
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rates ◽  
Indian Population ◽  
Differential Privacy ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Rural Populations ◽  
White Population ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Aggregate Population ◽  
Hispanic White

The proposed changes to disclosure avoidance policies of the U.S. Census Bureau, grounded in differential privacy, have faced increasing criticism from demographers and other social scientists. Scholars have found that counts generated via Census-released test data are accurate for aggregate population statistics but introduce considerable error for tabulations of sub-groups. At present, the ramifications of this new approach, and the error it may introduce, remain unclear for rural populations. In this brief, we focus on rural populations and evaluate the ability of the proposed differential privacy data to estimate growth rates from 2000 to 2010 across the rural-urban continuum for the total, non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic or Latino/a, and non-Hispanic American Indian population. We find the method introduces significant error into growth rates at the county level for all groups except the total and non-Hispanic white population. Further, errors increase dramatically as we move from urban to rural. Thus, unless corrected the proposed differential privacy method will introduce significant rural and non-white bias into census tabulations.

Differential Privacy and Census Data: Implications for Social and Economic Research

2019 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 403-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Ruggles ◽  
Catherine Fitch ◽  
Diana Magnuson ◽  
Jonathan Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Census Data ◽  
Differential Privacy ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Free Access ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Disclosure Control ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Area Data

The Census Bureau has announced new methods for disclosure control in public use data products. The new approach, known as differential privacy, represents a radical departure from current practice. In its pure form, differential privacy techniques may make the release of useful microdata impossible and limit the utility of tabular small-area data. Adoption of differential privacy will have far-reaching consequences for research. It is likely that scientists, planners, and the public will lose the free access we have enjoyed for six decades to reliable public Census Bureau data describing US social and economic change.

ID: 89: RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION AND SPATIAL CLUSTERING OF COLONOSCOPY RESOURCES WITHIN THE CITY OF CHICAGO

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 936.2-937 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Naylor ◽  
O Kassim ◽  
K Kim
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Clustering ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Geospatial Analysis ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
South Side ◽  
White Race ◽  
Census Tracts ◽  
Population Demographic ◽  
The City ◽  
Hispanic White

BackgroundIn Illinois for the year 2015, colorectal cancer (CRC) is projected to cause 2,090 deaths, making it the leading cause of non-tobacco related cancer mortality. African American or black Illinois residents have an approximately 7% greater incidence and a 30% higher mortality rate when compared to white residents. Guideline consistent CRC screening is known to increase early diagnosis and reduce cancer related death. Colonoscopy is the most commonly performed screening modality and diagnostic colonoscopy is required for follow up of abnormal non-invasive screening tests.The City of Chicago is home to 2.7 million residents, of whom 31% are non-Hispanic white and 37% are non-Hispanic black. Chicago is known to have significant residential racial segregation with 69% of the total non-Hispanic black population living within communities located south of Roosevelt Avenue, on Chicago's south side. Relatively homogenous minority communities, such as Chicago's south side, are prone to the development of healthcare inequities that may result in the development of healthcare disparities.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to use geographic information systems and geospatial analysis to investigate the spatial distribution of healthcare facilities that perform colonoscopy within the City of Chicago.MethodsPopulation demographic data by census block was obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2009–2013 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. The locations of facilities performing colonoscopy procedures were identified through internet search; review of Illinois Department of Public Health hospital listings; and ambulatory surgery center (ASC) accreditation listings. Each facility was contacted by phone to confirm performance of on-site colonoscopy and to obtain the number of on-site endoscopy procedure rooms. The addresses of facilities were geocoded using GPS Visualizer. City of Chicago census tract boundaries were mapped using U.S. Census Bureau Tiger Line shapefiles. Maps were created and geospatial analysis was performed using Esri ArcMap version 10.2.ResultsWithin the City of Chicago, a total of 41 facilities were identified that perform on-site colonoscopy. Of the 41 facilities, 26 were hospital-based and 15 were ASC-based. 10 of 26 (38%) Hospital-based colonoscopy sites and 3 of 15 (20%) ASC-based colonoscopy sites were located on Chicago's south side. There were a total of 134 endoscopy procedure rooms reported across the 41 facilities. 30 of the 134 (22%) endoscopy procedure rooms were located on Chicago's south side. Spatial overlap was observed between areas with clustering of endoscopy procedure rooms and census tracts with greater than 80% non-Hispanic white race.ConclusionsThere is an unequal distribution of colonoscopy facilities and endoscopy procedure rooms across the City of Chicago with geographic clustering of colonoscopy infrastructure observed on Chicago's north side within census tracts comprised of greater than 80% non-Hispanic white race. Census tracts containing high proportions of non-Hispanic black race were clustered on Chicago's south side within areas with a relative paucity of colonoscopy infrastructure. The spatial clustering of colonoscopy procedure rooms represents a healthcare resource inequity that may contribute to the persistence of disparities in CRC related mortality among non-Hispanic black communities in Chicago.

scholarly journals Arsenic and ultraviolet radiation exposure: melanoma in a New Mexico non-Hispanic white population

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 897-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice W. Yager ◽  
Esther Erdei ◽  
Orrin Myers ◽  
Malcolm Siegel ◽  
Marianne Berwick
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Ultraviolet Radiation ◽  
Radiation Exposure ◽  
White Population ◽  
Ultraviolet Radiation Exposure ◽  
Hispanic White

scholarly journals Budget sharing for multi-analyst differential privacy

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 1805-1817
Author(s):  
David Pujol ◽  
Yikai Wu ◽  
Brandon Fain ◽  
Ashwin Machanavajjhala
Keyword(s):  
Optimization Problem ◽  
Differential Privacy ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Query Answering ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Census ◽  
Privacy Budget ◽  
Summary Data ◽  
Single Set

Large organizations that collect data about populations (like the US Census Bureau) release summary statistics that are used by multiple stakeholders for resource allocation and policy making problems. These organizations are also legally required to protect the privacy of individuals from whom they collect data. Differential Privacy (DP) provides a solution to release useful summary data while preserving privacy. Most DP mechanisms are designed to answer a single set of queries. In reality, there are often multiple stakeholders that use a given data release and have overlapping but not-identical queries. This introduces a novel joint optimization problem in DP where the privacy budget must be shared among different analysts. We initiate study into the problem of DP query answering across multiple analysts. To capture the competing goals and priorities of multiple analysts, we formulate three desiderata that any mechanism should satisfy in this setting - The Sharing Incentive, Non-interference, and Adaptivity - while still optimizing for overall error. We demonstrate how existing DP query answering mechanisms in the multi-analyst settings fail to satisfy at least one of the desiderata. We present novel DP algorithms that provably satisfy all our desiderata and empirically show that they incur low error on realistic tasks.

scholarly journals Partnering With African American Churches to Support Families Affected by Dementia Through Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 768-769
Author(s):  
Fayron Epps
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
White Population ◽  
Brain Health ◽  
Successful Development ◽  
African American Churches ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Faith Leaders ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
American Churches ◽  
Hispanic White

Abstract African Americans (AA) are disproportionately impacted by dementia when compared to the non-Hispanic white population, yet are significantly underrepresented in research. Often times, families in the AA community turn to their church for help when in distress. Recognizing that churches are frequently the cornerstone of AA communities, they are an ideal setting for health promotion, research, and education. However, many AA churches do not have the resources to support their congregants affected by dementia. To build capacity within churches to address brain health promotion and facilitate research access/participation, we partnered with 6 predominantly AA churches in the metropolitan Atlanta area to facilitate research and develop dementia-related programs. While stakeholders were initially reluctant, continual engagement with senior faith leaders helped to facilitate the successful development of a research registry of congregants interested in participating in faith-based and clinical research and establishment of new programs to congregants around brain health and dementia.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Opioid Prescribing Habits Based on Analysis of a State Prescription Drug Monitoring Program

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (22;5) ◽  
pp. E425-E433
Author(s):  
John C. Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Multiple Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
The State ◽  
White Population ◽  
Prescribing Habits ◽  
Controlled Substances ◽  
Opioid Prescribing ◽  
Us Census

Background: The current opioid epidemic is perhaps the greatest public health crisis in the United States. Although multiple factors led to the rise of this epidemic, it is without question associated with the rise in opioid prescribing. Objectives: Better understanding of the opioid prescribing may provide insights into populationlevel trends contributing to this epidemic, and opportunities to decrease the magnitude of opioid overdose-related death. Therefore we assessed trends in opioid prescribing habits based on analysis of the Texas Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) and geographic, ethnic, and incomerelated data from the US Census Bureau. Study Design: Multiple linear regression analysis of Texas PDMP and US Census Bureau data were performed to assess for correlations to opioid prescribing based on geographic, ethnic, income, and time-related variables. Setting: All controlled substances prescribed in the state of Texas from April 2015 to May 2018 were analyzed. Methods: We obtained data from the Texas PDMP for all controlled substances from April 2015 to May 2018. We performed multiple linear regression analysis of these data along with US Census Bureau data to assess for correlations based on geographic, ethnic, income, and time-related variables. We hypothesized that there would be substantial variability in opioid prescribing habits based on geographic, ethnic, and economic variables. Results: Approximately 200 million pills of controlled substances were prescribed per month over the studied time frame. Overall, high geographic variability was noted, and this strongly correlated to race and ethnicity. Opioid prescribing increased along with the proportion of white residents within a county, but a similar negative correlation was noted with increasing Hispanic population proportion. This correlation was noted throughout the study period, but up until 2017, lower income levels among higher white population had even higher correlation with increased opioid prescribing. Cumulative opioid prescriptions throughout the state fell beginning in 2017. Limitations: This analysis does not include opioids obtained illicitly or from prescriptions outside the state of Texas. The specificity of geographic data are limited to the county level due to irregular entry of zip code data by prescribing pharmacies. Conclusions: In the state of Texas over the studied time period, there was strong correlation for higher rates of opioid prescribing as white population increased despite overall decreased opioid prescribing starting in 2017. Until 2017, this correlation grew stronger as low-income white population increased. Key words: Opioid, opioid epidemic, opioid utilization

scholarly journals Making the Case for Food Security through Contextual Engineering

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Rural Society ◽  
Rural Populations ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Societal Needs ◽  
Developed World ◽  
National Food Security

A non-westernized nation’s food security often depends on preservation of rural agricultural livelihoods, yet a globalizationdriven international effort to “develop” societies by providing modern infrastructure has focused on population centers, creating two-tiered economies that frequently leave rural populations behind. As a result, young residents of rural communities are migrating with greater frequency to urban areas, viewing their home society as outdated and irrelevant. To address this disparity, organizations and volunteer groups attempt to deliver infrastructure interventions to small rural communities, often drawing upon their own experience or out-of-the-box designs to provide water, sanitation, transportation, or energy. The success rate of these interventions in meeting societal needs are marginal at best, often disregarding indigenous practices and beliefs and further demeaning rural lifestyles. A new approach is needed to stabilize rural communities and sustain agricultural livelihoods throughout the alternately developed world through quality-of-life improvements via engineered infrastructure. Contextual engineering merges technical design with sociological understanding to identify the critical influences that govern each client community, dispensing with the artifice of scalability to address specific physical needs. By focusing on client society beliefs, values, and needs, the infrastructure designer may better create an affordable, functional, and appropriate infrastructure to support and advance that rural society. This paper will present the contextual engineering concept’s potential to support rural growth for stronger agricultural productivity and national food security.

scholarly journals Editorial for Volume 9 Issue 2

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Ullman ◽  
Lars Vilhuber
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Computer Security ◽  
Programming Languages ◽  
Differential Privacy ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Mining Machine ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
High Degree

Differential privacy is a promising approach to privacy-preserving data analysis that provides strong worst-case guarantees about the harm that a user could suffer from contributing their data, but is also flexible enough to allow for a wide variety of data analyses to be performed with a high degree of utility. Researchers in differential privacy span many distinct research communities, including algorithms, computer security, cryptography, databases, data mining, machine learning, statistics, programming languages, social sciences, and law. Two articles in this issue describe applications of differentially private, or nearly differentially private, algorithms to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. A  third article highlights a thorny issue that applies to all implementations of differential privacy: how to choose the key privacy parameter ε, This special issue also includes selected contributions from the 3rd Workshop on Theory and Practice of Differential Privacy, which was held in Dallas, TX on October 30, 2017 as part of the ACM Conference on Computer Security (CCS).

scholarly journals Inmigración y envejecimiento en Estados Unidos. Una relación por descubrir /// Immigration and Aging in the United States of America. A Relationship to Discover

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 527
Author(s):  
Alejandro I. Canales
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin American ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Population Projections ◽  
White Population ◽  
The One ◽  
Latin American Immigration ◽  
Near Future

En Estados Unidos el avance del envejecimiento de la población blanca es tal que ya se expresa en importantes déficits de población en edades activas y reproductivas. En este contexto, la inmigración latinoamericana ha permitido cubrir estos desequilibrios aportando, por un lado, los volúmenes de población necesarios para mantener los niveles de reproducción demográfica y, por otro, proveyendo los contingentes de fuerza de trabajo requeridos para mantener el dinamismo económico. Sin embargo, este sistema de complementariedad demográfica no está exento de tensiones y contradicciones. La masividad de la migración, como su mayor natalidad y fecundidad, pueden derivar en una situación donde la tradicional primacía de la población blanca pudiera verse cuestionada por el crecimiento de la población de origen latino. Las más recientes proyecciones demográficas indican un avance en ese sentido. En este artículo documentamos esta situación. AbstractIn the United States the aging of the white population is already generating significant demographic deficits, specially in population in active and reproductive ages. In this context, Latin American immigration has helped to cover these imbalances by providing, on the one hand, the volumes needed to maintain population levels of demographic re-production, while providing contingent workforce needed to maintain economic dynamism. However, this demographic complementarity is not absent from tensions and contradictions. Large volumes of migration with their higher levels of birth and fertility, could lead in the near future to a situation where the traditional primacy of the white population could be challenged by the growth of the Latino population. Recent population projections indicate a step in that direction. In this article we document this situation using official statistics of the Census Bureau of the United States.

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