Overview: Half of all young children living in Very High Risk of Undercount tracts are located in just 34 Counties
On February 5, 2020, the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) released a database identifying the Census tracts in 689 large counties (all the counties with at least 5,000 children under age 5 in the 2010 Census) where young children (age 0 to 4) were most at risk of being missed in the 2020 Census. All the Very High Risk of Undercount tracts had a predicted young child net undercount of 8.3 percent or more based on the most recent data available. The PRB research indicates that more than 4 million young children live in Very High Risk of Undercount census tracts. This amounts to 25 percent of all young children.
The table below shows that the 4 million young children most at risk of being missed in the 2020 Census are clustered in a relatively small number of counties. Half of all children in the 689 counties living in Very High Risk of Undercount census tracts are located in 34 counties, and one-quarter are in just 8 counties. These locations deserve special attention in terms of reducing the high net undercount of young children in the census.
You can find more resources below:
- PRB database
- This CUNY HTC mapping application gives a more granular look at the census tracts in these counties.
- This webinar gives more information about the database and using the database in the CUNY HTC mapping system.
- This paper describes the database and how to use it.
