By Kathryn McBroom
Staff Writer

The Census Bureau is moving into its “quality assurance phase,” the second stage of its multipart calculation of the United State’s population.

During this phase, the bureau works to revisit data they have received, as well as follow up with households that have not submitted a response. There are three main stages within the second phase: coverage follow up, vacant delete check, and field verification.

“We have to go back and check ourselves to make sure that the data we collected in the production phase is accurate,” said John Lowery of the Census Bureau’s Athens office.

During coverage follow up, a selected number of homes will receive phone calls in order to clarify information that may have been deemed confusing.

Vacant delete checks make sure that any lots or homes that have been classified as unoccupied are in fact vacant.
Any home with an address that do not match the one the census bureau has on file may be visited by a census worker during the field verification stage.  

“Our QA folks are primarily there to make sure that the data we are collecting is accurate based upon the actual number of cases they have to communicate with,” said Lowery.

Lowery emphasized the importance of having correct census data as it will help in determining the “benefits” a community receives.

“The individual person’s information isn’t subject to any scrutiny, other than making sure that we got their information correct the first time,” said Lowery.

The majority of the 14 counties that the Athens office oversees, including Morgan, have done a “great job” when it comes to residents returning data to the Census Bureau. Some counties even had return rates over 80 percent.
“All of the counties [returns] have been higher this time than in 2000. We’re really pleased with the performance level of all the counties,” said Lowery.