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July 19, 2010 - Image 8

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Publication:
Michigan Daily Summer Weekly, 2010-07-19

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8

Monday, July 19, 2010
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Census di rector
discusses work
Former 'U' researcher es, 150,000 bureau employees walked
every street in the country to deter-
presents update on mine which addresses to either add to
or eliminate from the list, according to
status of 2010 Census Groves.
Once the list of addresses was
By HILLARY BOK revised, Groves said the next step was
Daily StaffReporter to send out questionnaires in the mail.
Groves emphasized the nature of
Robert Groves, director of the U.S. the information collected through the
Census Bureau, addressed community questionnaires.
members Friday morning at the Uni- "We are attempting to count the
versity Museum of Modern Art con- population as it existed on Apr. 1, 2010,"
cerning strategies the bureau is taking Groves said. "With each passing day,
to increase the accuracy of the 2010 that becomes more difficult, because
Census. you have to reconstruct who was alive
Groves, a former survey researcher and who was not alive on Apr. 1."
for the University, explained the pro- Advertising was a major part of rais-
cess of collecting data for the census ing awareness of the Census, according
and the goals for this year's final result, to Groves. He explained that adver-
including the Dec. 31 deadline. tising had to target everyone in the
Groves said the process of informa- country and not just any one group. He
tion collection for the Census begins estimated $150 million was spent on
with a "gigantic list of addresses," advertising for the 2010 Census alone.
which was compiled during the spring "It was a consortium of many adver-
and summer of last year. tising firms," he said. "Many of them
Equipped with handheld GPS devic- targeted certain ethnic, subcultural

or language groups led by people from
that community. The advertising was
disproportionately local this time, as
opposed to national."
For example, Groves said that to
reinforce the importance of counting
each and every person in the house-
hold, the Los Angeles Regional Office
distributed onesies for babies that said,
"I'm here. I should be counted."
Advertisements for the 2010 Census
appeared in a wide variety of languag-
es in an attempt to make more people
aware of the process and the dead-
lines to decrease the number of non-
responses.
Another way that the Census Bureau
attempted to reduce the number of
non-responses was by mailing out
replacement forms.
"Survey researchers have known
for maybe 40 years that if you send
a replacement form, that raises the
response rate. The 2010 Census for the
first time has that feature," Groves said.
Based on preliminary results, Groves
said he has noticed the positive effect of
the replacement forms in the response
rates. He also noted something inter-
esting about the response rates.
"A surprise to meas a social scientist,
was thatifyoubuild apredictive model,
you can drive the race and ethnicity
coefficient almost to zero if you put in
socioeconomic indicators," Groves
said. "This is a much bigger correlate

than race and ethnicity. I'm not sure
we have addressed that as a country as
much as we've addressed the variation
in race and ethnicity."
But there is always some data that
will simply not be returned to the
bureau. Groves said one of his favorite
stories from the 2010 Census collection
came from the Detroit Regional Office.
Groves said an employee working
for census collection ventured to the
Upper Peninsula to deliver a question-
naire to an isolated cabin. After hik-
ing for more than a mile, the employee
came upon the cabin to find the 2000
Census, still attached to the doorknob.
"You cannot be cost efficient in a
census," Groves laughed about the
story.
Despite the efforts of the Census
Bureau so far, Groves said the numbers
collected at this point are still only pre-
liminary.
"The revisions of these numbers will
continue throughout the fall. I believe
strongly that one building block of
the credibility of census is for us to be
transparent. You are going to see all
these numbers," he said.
The deadline for the 2010 Census is
December 31. By this date the Census
Bureau must submit the population
counts on a state level to the President
so that the number of seats inthe House
of Representatives to be reapportioned
accordingly.

WRITE FOR
THE DAILY.
E-mail alapin@umich.edu
for details.
CORRECTIONS
* A July 12 article in the print
edition of The Michigan Daily
("Hanlon gets 64-percent salary
raise") accidentally omitted that
Hanlon's contract was executed
on Feb.25 and that the contract
was not previously released to
The Michigan Dailybecause
of an internal communication
misunderstanding at the Univer-
sity. An earlier version of this
story also inaccurately reported
that Hanlon would receive
his deferred compensation of
$75,000 every year through
2014. He is only receiving his
deferred compensation in 2010.
" A July 12 article in the print
edition of The Michigan Daily
("LSA Building initiates 'U'
smoke-free policy") inaccu-
rately identified the University
Health Service as the University
of Michigan Health System.
" Please report any error in
the Daily to corrections@
michigandaily.com.

0

I I

Felix Mendelssohn's
1E 1.dI H l
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Hill Auditorium
Blue Lake International Choir
Alumni Choir and Youth Symphony

Mon, July 26
Blue Lake
International Choir
Works by Bach,
Bruckner, and Bernstein

Wed, July 28
Blue Lake
International
Youth Symphony
Shostakovich No.5 r

Blue Lake Student Art Exhibition
July 13- August 18
Art Lounge
MICHIGAN UNION

All Concerts Begin at 7:30 p.m.
More information at bluelake.org/ebi

1 E R a i!. n x a a < r a. fl f is F n: x . a .,. a: a . . _ .. _ ..

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