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Content Changes

American Community Survey (ACS) content is designed to meet the needs of federal government agencies and is a rich source of local area information useful to state, local, and tribal governments, universities, and businesses.  

However, constraining the content of the ACS is critical due to the mandatory reporting requirement and burden to the American people.  Content tests involve the testing, research, and evaluation processes used to determine the best wording, format, and placement of proposed new questions or revisions to existing questions on the ACS.  This process ensures that each new or modified question has been carefully considered, tested fully, and will collect quality data without reducing overall respondent participation.  If you are interested in learning more about how a question gets added to the ACS, check out the How a Question Becomes a Part of the American Community Survey infographic, as well as the below Policy for Adding New Content to the ACS document.

Through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Interagency Committee for the ACS (co-chaired by the OMB and the Census Bureau), more than thirty Federal agencies participate in the review of the ACS instrument.  Proposed changes, including new content to the ACS content must meet certain criteria laid out by the OMB and the Interagency Council for Statistical Policy (ICSP) Subcomittee for the ACS.   Final question wording must be vetted by ICSP Subcommittee and OMB before field testing.  In general, Content Tests evaluate alternatives for questions which show some indication of a problem, for example, high missing data rates, estimates which differ systematically from other sources of the same information, or low reliability.

The methodology used for content testing is designed to be similar to ACS data collection in a regular production cycle. The Census Bureau collects data on the quality of the responses obtained in the test. Response variance, gross difference rates, item nonresponse rates, and measures of distributional changes from the regular production cases serve as indicators of the quality of the test questions relative to current ACS questions. Content testing and analysis takes place over approximately two years, so that the results are not implemented until at least two years following the date associated with the content test.

Content Test Evaluation Reports


2007
2007
  • All
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2017
  • 2016
  • 2013
  • 2012
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2007

Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Place of Birth, Citizenship, & Arrival
Results of proposed changes to the place of birth, citizenship, and year of entry content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Service-Connected Disability
Service-connected disability was included in the 2006 American Community Survey (ACS) Content Test to test whether ACS could provide accurate estimates.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Weeks Worked
Results of proposed changes to the weeks worked content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Year Built
Results of proposed changes to the residence 1 year ago content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Rooms and Bedrooms
Results of proposed changes to the rooms and bedrooms content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering School Enrollment
Results of proposed changes to the school enrollment content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Marital History
Results of the proposed addition of marital history as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Educational Attainment
Results of proposed changes to the educational attainment content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Mortgage Related Topics
Results of proposed changes to the mortgage related content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Year Built
Results of proposed changes to the residence 1 year ago content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Period of Military Service
The objective for including the period of military service topic in the 2006 ACS Content Test was to improve the quality of the data for this topic.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Receipt of Food Stamps
Results of proposed changes to the food stamps content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Heating Fuel
Results of proposed changes to the heating fuel content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Residence 1-Year Ago (Migration)
The 2006 ACS Content Test compared two versions of the residence one year ago (migration) question set.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Facilities
Results of proposed changes to the facilities content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Disability
Results of proposed changes to the disability content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Property Value
Results of proposed changes to the property value content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Industry and Occupation Items
Results of proposed changes to the industry and occupation content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Vehicles
Results of proposed changes to the vehicles content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Employment Status
Results of proposed changes to the employment status content as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Military Service Status
Military service status was included in the 2006 American Community Survey (ACS) Content Test to improve the accuracy of the count of veterans.


Working Paper
Evaluation Report Covering Health Insurance
Results of the proposed addition of health insurance as tested in the 2006 American Community Survey Content Test.


Working Paper
New and Modified Content on the 2008 ACS Questionnaire
Summary of 2006 ACS Content Test and the 2007 ACS Grid-Sequential Test results that led to changes.

Page Last Revised - March 26, 2024
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