Thousands of Alabama Addresses Added in 2020 Count Review
- March 31st, 2020
Staff from the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) recently participated in the Census Bureau’s Count Review Event. The Count Review Event is a nation-wide effort coordinated by the Census Bureau to improve the quality of their Master Address File, which is the list of addresses the Census Bureau will work from while conducting the 2020 Census. This effort contributed to enhancing the accuracy and completeness of the 2020 Census. CBER staff members involved in the Count Review Event included Viktoria Riiman, Shannon Murphy, Susannah Robichaux, Stephanie Normanyo, and Kilungu Nzaku.
To prepare for the Count Review Event, CBER staff put out a call to city- and county-level stakeholders throughout Alabama in an effort to gather up-to-date lists of group quarter and housing unit addresses. The help these stakeholders offered was absolutely essential during the Count Review Event, as they provided the lists of addresses that were checked against the Census Bureau’s Master Address File. If the addresses were not already included in the Census Bureau’s Master Address File, they were flagged for possible inclusion during the 2020 Census counts of each state’s total population, housing units, and group quarters.
The 2020 Count Review Event was held during a four-week period earlier this year, from January 13 to February 6. The first half of the Count Review Event focused on group quarters, which include non-federal correctional facilities, nursing facilities, college/university on-campus housing, military barracks, workers’ group living quarters, and job corps facilities. Thanks to the hard work of CBER staff, 200 group quarter addresses were added to the Census Bureau’s Master Address File for Alabama to include people who otherwise would not have been counted during the 2020 Census. The second half of the Count Review Event focused on residential housing units. During this phase of the event, CBER was able to add 21,470 housing units that were new to the Census Bureau’s Master Address File and matched to the United States Postal Service’s address files. These housing unit addresses are being sent to the next step of reconciliation for possible addition to the Census Bureau’s workload in counting people who live in residential homes.
The 2020 Census is very important to the future of Alabama and CBER staff are doing their part by making sure the Census Bureau’s Master Address File is as accurate and complete as possible. Remember—Alabama Counts!