The
Institute for Health and Social Policy
American Community Survey information
The
URL for this page is: http://www3.uakron.edu/src/DataServ/ACS/
The American Community Survey (ACS) is continually garnered new Census data. It is a smaller sample than the decennial (10 year) Census, which (ideally) reaches the entire population for the short form and about 16% of the population for the long form.
Because of the smaller sample, the Census Bureau only releases annual ACS data on locations of 65,000 population or greater. The Bureau will release 3 year aggregates of locations/areas between 20,000 and 65,000 population, and 5 year aggregates of locations under 20,000 population. Years prior to 2005 (1996-2004) had even smaller samples, and the thresholds for data availability are stricter.
Location can be any geographic entity defined by the Bureau, and can be of any legal status (incorporated city, tract, township, state, etc...) The population size, rather than the type determines when and what sort of data are released. Please note that the Bureau uses the term "Place" very specifically to indicate an incorporated city or village, and does not use the more common vernacular definition.
Ohio Department of Development - Ohio data
American Community Survey Data - For all years and locations that are available
American
Community Survey Documentation
CODE
and downloading raw data:
SPSS scripts for 2005 ACS PUMS data - these files may work on data from later years.
Use these imperfect files freely to assist with your research. Modify them as needed, and do as you'd like with them aside from claiming that you wrote them.
PUMS (Public-Use Microdata Samples) are a special extraction of Census data that provides entire records (minus specific geography) for a small sub-sample of respondents. There are PUMS data for both the decennial census and ACS. They are very useful when researchers need very specific data on respondents, but do not need a precise location. PUMS data comes in 2 distinct files. Many people merge them together to use them.
One file is the HOUSING data, which has one record per household.
The second file is the larger PERSON dataset, which includes one record for each person in every household in the HOUSING file.
You can download data from the Census Bureau directly. If you use SPSS, below are files written by CPS to format raw 2005 ACS PUMS data files.
There are
2 distinct files each for the HOUSING
and PERSON data.
The first
file sets the format when you import the raw data into SPSS. The second file
adds the variable and value labels to your data.
To download
the SPSS import script that formats the 2005 ACS
HOUSING PUMS dataset, click
here.
Use
the import script first. Open SPSS, select the raw HOUSING
.CSV data file, and then from within SPSS select this TextWizard Predefined
Format (.TPF) script which guides the importing and conversion process.
To download
the SPSS syntax file that adds HOUSING variable
and value lables, click
here.
[Use
after the .TPF import script sets up your SPSS file.]
To download
the SPSS import script that formats the 2005 ACS PERSON
PUMS dataset, click
here.
Use
the import script first. Open SPSS, select the raw .CSV PERSON
data file, and then from within SPSS select this TextWizard Predefined Format
(.TPF) script which guides the importing and conversion process.
To download
the SPSS syntax file that adds PERSON variable
and value lables, click
here.
[Use
after the .TPF import script sets up your SPSS file. This file generates some
errors when run because many of the Census labels are too long. I left the long
labels intact, and you can ignore these error messages. You should pay attention
to others, though.]
Now that
you've created and formatted your 2 files, you can merge the HOUSING
data to each corresponding record in the PERSON
file.
To download the SPSS syntax file that merges these 2 files, click
here.
[Be
careful with the paths and file names. You'll need to sort both files by the
same variable SERIALNO, which must be in exactly the same format in each file.
Run this while the PERSON SPSS file is open and
you've specified the path to the HOUSING SPSS file.]
Also
check: Integrated
Public Use Microdata Series - IPUMS
- University of Minnesota- free historic and current PUMS data - including ACS
And: Columbia
University technical data, links and documentation on PUMS data
Note: the Census Bureau will
alter/obscure atypical responses that could permit the identification of individual
respondents.
For
more information or additional Ohio or U.S. Demographics:
Contact Data
Services at the Institute for Health and Social Policy
IHSP
Data Links
External and University Links
To return to the Institute for Health and Social Policy front page, follow this link. http://www.uakron.edu/centers/ihsp/
The
University of Akron
The Institute for
Health and Social Policy
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