The U.S. Census Bureau released today the 2020 Census Predictive Models and Audience Segmentation Report. The report explains the Census Bureau’s predictions and understandings of how people might self-respond to the 2020 Census. Households will be able to respond to the 2020 Census online, by phone, or by mail.
The report describes research on three aspects of self-response behavior: self-response rate predictions, the proportion of internet self-response, and response and self-response timing drawn from previously collected data. This information is available for demographic groups and down to the census tract level.
The study also describes eight “audience segments” that group together small geographies with similar demographics, response characteristics, and media use habits and mindsets. Each census tract is assigned an audience segment, and these segments are newly available as an interactive map data layer in the Census Bureau’s Response Outreach Area Mapper (ROAM). ROAM is a web mapping application that provides information about hard-to-count populations and allows users to see the percentage of households predicted to not self-respond to the 2020 Census at the census tract level.
As outlined in the 2020 Census Integrated Communications Plan, the results of this research enable the Census Bureau to create messages, design creative materials, and determine where and when to allocate advertising in order to encourage hard-to-count populations to participate in the 2020 Census.