Reducing Response Burden in the American Community Survey

Although people in the United States have historically been reasonably supportive of federal censuses and surveys, they are increasingly unavailable for or not willing to respond to interview requests from federal—as well as private—sources. Moreover, even when people agree to respond to a survey, they increasingly decline to complete all questions, and both survey and item nonresponse are growing problems.

In March 2016, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to consider the respondent burden and its challenges and opportunities of the American Community Survey, which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Table of Contents

• Front Matter
• 1 Introduction: Understanding Response Burden
• 2 Approaches to Reducing Response Burden
• 3 Improving Response by Building Respondent Support
• 4 Using Administrative Records to Reduce Response Burden
• 5 Using Improved Sampling and Other Methods to Reduce Response Burden
• 6 Tailoring Collection of Information from Group Quarters
• 7 Future Directions
• References
• Appendix A: Workshop Agenda
• Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Steering Committee and Presenters
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