Optimized Survey Design for Monitoring Protocols: A Case Study of Waterfowl Abundance

Nationwide monitoring programs are important tools that quantify the status and trends of natural resources providing important information for management and conservation decisions. These programs operate at large spatial scales with standardized protocols requiring wide-spread participation. However, resource limitations can reduce participation, which can then compromise the spatial replication needed for nationwide inference. The Integrated Waterbird Management and Monitoring program is an example of a national monitoring program that could benefit from a reduction in sampling effort to facilitate increased participation and ultimately broader inference. Therefore, we examined various sampling schemes to determine if it is possible to reduce the sampling effort while maintaining the statistical accuracy needed to support management. We found that instead of needing to census a National Wildlife Refuge, sampling effort could be reduced while accurately estimating waterfowl abundance to within 10% of the census count by surveying just 2/3 of all the sample units or 3/4 of the total survey area. Not only did this guideline apply to our five pilot National Wildlife Refuges, but it was also further validated by applying it to four additional National Wildlife Refuges. We hope that by applying this finding to other National Wildlife Refuges, we can increase participation in the program by reducing the logistical and financial burden of sampling.

Latinxs and the US Census

The question of how to classify and count Latinxs has perplexed citizens and state officials alike for decades. Although Latinxs in the United States have been counted in every census the nation has conducted, it was not until the 1930s that the issue of race came to the fore as the politics of who Latinxs were and whether the government should simply classify them as White became contested. These issues were amplified in the 1960s when Chicano and Boricua—Puerto Rican—activists, inspired by the Black civil rights movement, demanded that their communities be counted as distinct from Anglos. Decades of racial terror, community denigration, and colonialism, they contended, had made the Latinx experience distinct from that of Whites. A separate classification, activists argued, would allow them to have data on the state of their communities and make claims on government resources. Having census data on Hispanic/Latino poverty, for example, would allow Latinx advocacy groups to lobby for anti-poverty programs in their communities. Yet the issue of race and Latinxs continued to be thorny as the Census Bureau struggled with how to create a classification broad enough to encompass the immense racial, social, and cultural diversity of Latinxs. As of 2020, the issue remains unresolved as the Bureau continues to officially classify Latinxs as ethnically Hispanic/Latino but racially White, even though the bulk of research shows that about half of Latinxs consistently check the “some other race” box on census forms. More recent Latinx census politics centers on the issue of whether the Census Bureau should include a citizenship question on census forms. Latinx advocacy groups and academics have long argued that such a question would dampen Latinx census participation and effect the usefulness of census data for making claims about the size, growth, and future of the Latinx community. These politics came to a head in the months leading up to the 2020 census count as the Trump administration attempted to overturn decades of protocol and add a citizenship question to the decennial census form.

Making the Census Count: Revealing Edinburgh 1760–1900

‘Name’ and ‘Address’ are critical to tracking people, to linkages with property and legal documents, to understanding household structures, and to spatial analysis in times past, as now. For historians, nominal data linkage is impaired when access to Census data is restricted and this in turn weakens the utility of archival sources more generally where names and addresses are common elements. Social and economic history, family and cultural history, genealogy and local history are undermined as a result. The central theme here is that under present arrangements Scottish historians and the Scottish public are denied access a crucial publicly-funded historical source, and that a ‘pay-as-you go’ approach is inappropriate for access to archival materials. No other European country applies such a policy. Modest examples based on Edinburgh data illustrate how access to the Census can enhance historical analysis and enrich the productivity of other archival sources linked through names and addresses.

Are Census Omissions of Young Children Due to Respondent Misconceptions about the Census?

The United States Census Bureau acknowledges the systematic undercount of young children in censuses and widely used surveys. Despite the growing body of research to understand the scope and characteristics of undercounted young children, little is known about likely causes. Missing from the research are efforts to talk with respondents about possible reasons for young child omissions. This study addresses that shortcoming using data from an online survey asking 800 respondents with young children several questions related to children and the census. The results indicate that many respondents have doubts about including young children in the census count for their household. Only 82 percent of low-income parents of young children responded that they would include their young child in the census count for their household. This percentage was lower if children had weaker ties to a household. These survey results provide evidence that misconceptions and confusion about including young children in the census exist and could easily result in young child omissions. These findings warrant replication and suggest that significant changes in instructions are needed to dispel these respondent misconceptions.

A Simple Method for Estimating the Number of Unconfirmed COVID-19 Cases in a Local Area that Includes a Confidence Interval: A Case Study of Whatcom County, Washington

Along with many other data problems affecting the unfolding of the COVID-10 pandemic in the United States, virtually nothing is known about the number of positive, unconfirmed cases, especially in local areas. We show that it is possible to estimate the number of positive, unconfirmed COVID-19 cases using a simple, long-established method employed by demographers to estimate a population in the absence of a census count. We go on to show how a confidence interval can be constructed around an estimate of positive, unconfirmed COVID-19 cases constructed from this method, using Whatcom County, Washington as a case study.

Global assessment of morbidity and mortality pattern of CoVID-19: Descriptive statistics overview

Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 is the recent most devastating global outbreak that influenced humanity in the new millennium since decades from the last devastating pandemic. Despite being of low mortality rates - if compared with the previous epidemics in human history - the progressively spreading epidemic does not impact health and life but also has changed man's lifestyle, economy, politics and many other undisputed admitted daily routines. Methods: The present case provides statistical analysis with a unique perspective using statistical process control (SPC) methodologies in a fast, simple and efficient way to study disease dissemination in terms of morbidities and mortalities globally. Results: Countries and territories with low population count were subjected relatively to a higher count of morbidities and mortalities than those of higher census count. Accordingly, the associate cases and death rates would be greater with a lower population number, suggesting that other factors should be involved in the outbreak hazard rather than the population number. Countries were arranged dissentingly by the residential census for illustration. The main contributing countries that showed collectively about 60% of the total CoVID-19 cases and deaths were arranged in descending order like the following: for cases, USA, Italy, Spain, China and Germany and for deaths, Italy, Spain, USA and France. A cubic relationship exists between the emerging number of cases and daily death records. CUSUM charts showed that the daily variations of the epidemic disease records have been rising and became out-of-control statistically on 17 and 19 March 2020. Conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 is still showing progressive dissemination patterns globally with variable impact between different countries or territories.

Washington Hotline

Academic libraries can make a difference in the 2020 CensusThe 2020 Census will be a central focus across the country this year, and academic libraries can take an active role in promoting its importance. It’s an opportunity to collaborate with campus administrators, students, faculty, community leaders, and elected officials to achieve a fair and accurate Census count. The results of the Census will affect federal funding allocations, Congressional representation, and planning and policy decisions for the next decade.

Under the Law: 2018–2019 Supreme Court highlights

Julie Underwood highlights three cases from the 2018-2019 U.S. Supreme Court term that have implications for education. In American Legion v. American Humanist Association (2019), the Court ruled that a cross on public land honoring World War I soldiers was not a violation of the Establishment Clause. In this ruling, the Justices criticized the Lemon test often used in cases related to religion in schools, but they did not invalidate it entirely. In Kisor v. Wilkie (2019), Justices expressed the belief that the Court should defer to administrative agencies in interpreting complex regulations and administrative guidance. This leaves room for the Department of Education and other agencies to reinterpret regulations for political or ideological reasons. In Department of Commerce v. State of New York (2019), the Court ruled that a citizenship question on the U.S. Census is acceptable, but the that Department of Commerce did not provide an acceptable reason for the decision. The outcome of this case could affect the census count, which would then affect how education funding is allocated.

The Shortest Path Isolation Index: A New Measure for Individual-level Residential Segregation

The study of segregation is essential for understanding how place influences life outcomes. Traditional segregation indices rely heavily on the use of areal units for calculation, which risks introducing both measurement and interpretation error. Using individual-level data avoids many of the problems facing traditional area-level indices. However, few segregation indices currently exist that are capable of utilizing such data. Given that our understanding is only as good as our measurement, it is imperative that our measures accurately reflect our perceptions of segregation. Utilizing the recent release of the complete 1940 Census count data, this article details a new individual-level segregation measure—the shortest path isolation (SPI) index. The SPI index captures the degree of racial isolation experienced by an individual, regarding both distance and interpersonal contact. With West Philadelphia as a sample study area, this article highlights the benefits of the SPI index for studying segregation at the individual level.