Administrative Data Limitations and the Need 

for Continued Improvement of Face-to-Face 

Interviewing for Non-English Speakers in 

National Surveys

Patricia Goerman, U.S. Census Bureau 

Alisú Schoua-Glusberg, Research Support Services 

Leticia Fernandez, U.S. Census Bureau 

Presentation for the Federal Committee on Statistical

Methodology (FCSM) 2021 Research and Policy Conference:

November 2-4, 2021

Virtual conference

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This presentation is released to inform interested parties of research and to encourage discussion. The 

views expressed are those of the authors and not those of the U.S. Census Bureau. Portions of this talk 

have been reviewed for disclosure avoidance and approved under clearance number: CBDRB-FY21-

CBSM002-015 and CBDRB-FY22_CBSM001-001.
Outline of Presentation 

• Background on use of Administrative Records (AR) in surveys

• Hard to Count (H2C) populations and AR linkage

• Qualitative insights about survey participation of H2C populations 

from a 2020 Census evaluation

• Recommendations about improving coverage of under-represented 

groups

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Background 

• Administrative Records are data collected by federal and state 

governments in the course of providing services to program 

participants

• The Census Bureau has been using administrative records (AR) for 

decades to update and supplement survey frames, inform edit and 

imputation routines, and construct new estimates (Mule 2021). 

• In the current environment of budget constraints and declining 

response rates, AR can be a cost-effective way to supplement census 

data but there are some challenges: 

• Not collected for statistical purposes

• May not include subpopulations that do not interact with 

agencies/institutions

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Hard-to-Count Populations

• Research has consistently reported that socially and economically 

marginalized subpopulations are most at risk of census omission 

ふOげHare ヲヰヱ9ぶ. 

• Community stakeholders and researchers have voiced concerns 

regarding how well AR cover historically HTC populations (McClure et 

al. 2017). 

• homeless, recent immigrants, young children, squatters, formerly 

incarcerated people, runaway or trafficked youth, etc. (Cohn 2016). 

• Implications for federal/state/local funding for community programs

• Indicators of well-being could be biased

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Hard-to-Count Populations and 

Administrative Records Linkage

In order to use Administrative Records to fill in survey gaps, it is necessary to 

link individuals across databases

• Individuals are linked across surveys and AR using a unique Protected 

Identification Key (PIK) based on personal identifiers using probability record

linkage techniques. 

• PIKs cannot be assigned to individuals with insufficient personal information 

(SSN, DOB, name, address). PIK assignment is not random (Bond et al. 2014).

• One way to assess coverage of HTC in AR is to match (by PIK) to other sources 

that may include them (e.g., survey of prison inmates). But there is no gold 

standard as surveys may also miss them.

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Foreign Born in Administrative Records

• Example: study to matched foreign born individuals in the ACS 2006-

2010 to Administrative Records (Bhaskar et al. 2018). 

• Of the 2.2 million foreign-born in the ACS sample, 79.5 percent were assigned 

a unique identifier (PIK) to be able to link them to Admin Records

• For those assigned a PIK, 97.6 percent could be matched to Admin records

• Low PIK rate for foreign born means that only 77.6 percent of foreign born in 

the ACS sample could be matched to Admin Records 

• Foreign born NOT in Admin Records had Hard-to-Count characteristics: 

• ‘eceミt iママigraミts, マore likely to speak Eミglish けミot wellげ or けミot at all,げ ミot ミaturalized 

citizens, lower levels of education, more likely to report not working last year, more likely 

to live in tracts with higher presence of foreign born, living in larger households 

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H2C Populations missing from censuses, 

surveys and Administrative Records

• H2C populations such as immigrants and non-English speakers maybe 

missing from censuses, surveys and Administrative Records

• The best chance to get them included in a census or other survey 

maybe through interviewer administered modes

• Qualitative methods can be extremely useful in finding out how to 

better reach and include these populations in our data collections 

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Qualitative Insights from a 2020 Census 

Doorstep Messaging Evaluation 

• Insights about respondent concerns that are missing from administrative 

records

• Project methodology: 

• Initial plan to observe bilingual interviewers and do 5-minute respondent 

debriefings

• Bilingual enumerator debriefing focus groups over the telephone 

• 28 focus groups with up to 6 enumerators per group from various regions 

across the country. 

• Plan: 4 focus groups per language group (English only, and bilingual 

enumerators who spoke the other 6 languages)

Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese), Korean, Russian, Spanish, 

Vietnamese

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Interviewer Focus Group Composition

Group Language Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 Total per 

language

Monolingual English 5 4 4 N/A N/A 13

Bilingual Spanish 4 3 3 2 5 17

Bilingual Chinese 5 3 4 5 N/A 17

Bilingual Vietnamese 4 4 4 6 N/A 18

Bilingual Korean 3 5 4 2 N/A 14

Bilingual Russian 1 6 2 4 N/A 13

Bilingual Arabic 4 5 6 4 N/A 19

Total enumerators who 

participated

111

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Insights Gained about Participation of 

Hard-to-Count Respondents 

1. Doorstep messages for encouraging reluctant respondent

participation

2. Challenges faced by interviewers

3. Undercount of children 

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1. Doorstep Messages for encouraging 

reluctant respondent participation

• Interviewers across languages reported having told respondents about how 

filling out the census would help their communities in terms of: 

• Schools

• Community centers

• Hospitals

• Emergency services

• Choice of messages based on respondent characteristics

• Confidentiality messages, particularly helpful with non-English speakers

• Enumerators reported that telling the respondent that completing the 

interview would prevent a follow up visit from another enumerator was 

helpful

11 This slide has been reviewed for disclosure avoidance and approved under clearance number: CBDRB-FY22-CBSM001-0
2. Challenges Faced by Interviewers

• Immigrant concerns

• For Spanish, Arabic, Korean and Chinese speakers, concerns about sharing information 

さI just thiミk aミyHody ┘hoげs aミ iママigraミt right ミo┘ マight He afraid ┘ith the current 

adマiミistratioミ aミd ミot trustiミg ┘hatげs goiミg oミ aミd thiミk they might use it against 

theマ.ざ – Arabic-speaking enumerator 

• For Spanish speakers, mentions of the government appeared to be a deterrent for 

participation:

さFor マe, I thiミk soマetiマes ┘heミ I マeミtioミed that it ┘as a go┗erミマeミt thiミg, theyげd 

iママediately say, けOh, ミo, ミo, ミo, ミo. I doミげt ┘aミt to do it ミo マore. Ne┗er マiミd.げざ

• Sharing a common language builds trust (Finding across languages) 

さYou kミo┘, oミe thiミg I sort of ミotiIed I guess is that it felt like ha┗iミg a Korean person go 

to a Korean household, for me it seemed like I was able to close the case or to complete the 

interview whereas in the case notes that I read before I knocked on the door, it often said, 

like, language barrier or refusal. So, it seemed like when I got to their door and immediately 

started speaking Korean to them, they were still annoyed but more open to I guess completing 

the iミter┗ie┘.ざ 

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3.Undercount of Children and Others 

• Undercount of children age 0-4 is a well documented and recurrent problem 

across multiple censuses (Jensen et al. 2018)

• It has gotten worse in this age group, while coverage of other age groups seems 

to have improved (O'Hare 2015)

• Children do not always get a PIK (for lack of some or all data needed), and this is 

more pronounced for Hispanic and racial minorities (Fernandez et al. 2018)

• Interviewers felt that omissions of children easily corrected in instrument

• Observation and respondent debriefing would likely be a better way to study this

• Incomplete information about children seemed more common to them than 

complete omissions

• Reluctance about sharing details on children in the household, especially date of birth

• Apartment buildings where more people living than allowed 

• Interviewers sometimes suspected omissions from respondents and apartment managers

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Recommendations for Improving Coverage of 

Under-represented Groups

• While Administrative Records can fill in many gaps due to decreasing 

response rates, they are not equally useful and accurate across all 

populations

• We recommend continued multi-mode research and improvements 

targeting inclusion of Hard-to-Count populations in national surveys

• In our example, the interviewer perspective provided many rich and 

interesting details. May not be the same as how respondents perceive 

things and/or what an observer would see in the field

• Recommend future observational field studies that include 

incorporating respondent voices into the process

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Administrative Data Limitations and the Need for 

Continued Improvement of Face-to-Face 

Interviewing for Non-English Speakers in National 

Surveys

Thank you! 

For more information: 

Patricia.L.Goerman@census.gov

alisu@researchsupportservices.com

leticia.esther.fernandez@census.gov

This presentation is released to inform interested parties of research and to encourage discussion. The views expressed are those of the authors 

and not those of the U.S. Census Bureau. This talk has been reviewed for disclosure avoidance and approved under clearance number: CBDRBFY21-CBSM002-015

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References

• Bhaskar, Renuka, Leticia Fernandez and Sonya R. Porter. 2018. Assimilation and coverage of the 

foreign-born population in administrative records. Statistical Journal of IAOS, 34(2): 191-201.

• Bond, Brittany, J. David Brown, Adela Luque, Aマy OげHara. ヲヰヱ4. The Nature of the Bias Wheミ 

Studying Only Linkable Person Records: Evidence from the American Community Survey. CARRA 

Working Paper Series #2014-08. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

• Cohn, DげVera. 2016. Census Bureau hopes to use data from other government agencies in 2020. 

Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. 

• Fernandez, Leticia, Rachel Shattuck, and James Noon. 2018. The Use of Administrative Records 

and the American Community Survey to Study the Characteristics of Undercounted Young 

Children in the 2010 Census. CARRA Working Paper Series #2018 – 05. Washington, DC: U.S. 

Census Bureau.

• McClure, Dave, Robert Santos and Shiva Kooragayala. 2017. Administrative Records in the 2020 

US Census, Civil Rights Considerations and Opportunities. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

• O'Hare, William. 2019. Differential Undercounts in the U.S. Census Who is Missed? Springer 

Open.

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