California is home to 12 percent of the nation's population yet accounts for more than 20 percent of the people living in the nation’s hardest-to-count areas, according to the United States Census Bureau (U.S. Census Bureau). California's unique diversity, large population distributed across both urban and rural areas, and sheer geographic size present significant barriers to achieving a complete and accurate count. The state’s population is more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before, with about 18 percent of Californians speaking English “less than very well,” according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Because the 2020 Census online form was offered in only twelve non-English languages, which did not correspond with the top spoken language in California, and a paper questionnaire only in English and Spanish, many Californians may not have been able to access a census questionnaire or written guidance in a language they could understand. In order to earn the confidence of California’s most vulnerable populations, it was critical during the 2020 Census that media and trusted messengers communicate with them in their primary language and in accessible formats. An accurate count of the California population in each decennial census is essential to receive its equitable share of federal funds and political representation, through reapportionment and redistricting. It plays a vital role in many areas of public life, including important investments in health, education, housing, social services, highways, and schools. Without a complete count in the 2020 Census, the State faced a potential loss of congressional seats and billions of dollars in muchneeded federal funding. An undercount of California in 1990 cost an estimated $2 billion in federal funding. The potential loss of representation and critically needed funding could have long-term impacts; only with a complete count does California receive the share of funding the State deserves with appropriate representation at the federal, state, and local government levels. The high stakes and formidable challenges made this California Complete Count Census 2020 Campaign (Campaign) the most important to date. The 2020 Census brought an unprecedented level of new challenges to all states, beyond the California-specific hurdles discussed above. For the first time, the U.S. Census Bureau sought to collect data from households through an online form. While the implementation of digital forms sought to reduce costs and increase participation, its immediate impact is still unknown as of this writing, and it may have substantially changed how many households responded to the census. In addition, conditions such as the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, a contentious political climate, ongoing mistrust and distrust of government, and rising concerns about privacy may have discouraged people to open their doors, or use computers, to participate. Federal immigration policy, as well as the months-long controversy over adding a citizenship question to the census, may have deterred households with mixed documentation status, recent immigrants, and undocumented immigrants from participating. In 2017, to prepare for the unique challenges of the 2020 Census, California leaders and advocates reflected on lessons learned from previous statewide census efforts and launched the development of a high-impact strategy to efficiently raise public awareness about the 2020 Census. Subsequently, the State established the California Complete Count – Census 2020 Office (Census Office) and invested a significant sum for the Campaign. The Campaign was designed to educate, motivate, and activate Californians to respond to the 2020 Census. It relied heavily on grassroots messaging and outreach to those least likely to fill out the census form. One element of the Campaign was the Language and Communication Access Plan (LACAP), which the Census Office developed to ensure that language and communication access was linguistically and culturally relevant and sensitive and provided equal and meaningful access for California’s vulnerable populations. The Census Office contracted with outreach partners, including community leaders and organizations, local government, and ethnic media, who all served as trusted messengers in their communities to deliver impactful words and offer safe places to share information and trusted messages. The State integrated consideration of hardest-to-count communities’ needs throughout the Campaign’s strategy at both the statewide and regional levels. The Campaign first educated, then motivated, and during the census response period, activated Californians to fill out their census form. The Census Office’s mission was to ensure that Californians get their fair share of resources and representation by encouraging the full participation of all Californians in the 2020 Census. This report focuses on the experience of the Census Office and partner organizations who worked to achieve the most complete count possible, presenting an evaluation of four outreach and communications strategies.

The Response Outreach Area Mapper (ROAM) application was developed to make it easier to identify hard-to-survey areas and to provide a socioeconomic and demographic characteristic profile of these areas using American Community Survey (ACS) estimates available in the Planning Database. Learning about each hard-to-survey area allows the U.S. Census Bureau to create a tailored communication and partnership campaign, and to plan for field resources including hiring staff with language skills. These and other efforts can improve response rates. To learn more see The Low Response Score (LRS): A Metric to Locate, Predict, and Manage Hard-to-Survey Populations and The 2020 Census at a Glance: Plan Census Outreach with the Response Outreach Area Mapper tool.

Abstract

The Turkana County Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS5) was conducted in collaboration with the Population Studies and Research Institute (PSRI) of the University of Nairobi, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics implemented (MICS5) in 2013-2014 in the three counties of Bungoma, Kakamega and Turkana as part of Global MICS round five.

MICS is an international household survey program that was developed by UNICEF in the 1990s as an international household survey program to support countries in the collection of internationally comparable data on a wide range of indicators on the situation of children and women. MICS provides up-to-date information on the situation of children and women and measures key indicators that allow countries to monitor progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed upon commitments. In Kenya, this information is important to guide the planning and implementation of new development plans targeting the new administrative county levels of governance. Technical and financial support were provided by the United Nations Children's Fund.

The results of this survey provided requisite baseline information that can be used to facilitate evidence-based planning, budgeting and programming by policymakers and stakeholders at the county levels. The survey will go a long way in encouraging increased demand for use of statistics by policy makers at devolved levels and will ensure that resources at both county and national levels are used most effectively through well-planned projects/programs that will benefit especially the women and children of the three counties. The MICS5 results were critical in gauging milestones achieved in the field of education, nutrition, child development, health for women and children in the three counties and in evaluating the various health based policies that the government has formulated over the years towards achieving the national welfare objectives.

The 2013-14 MICS5 data was critical in informing the future planning for the three counties, especially in view of the new constitutional dispensation and Vision 2030. It was anticipated that MICS5 would supplement the data collected during the 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS). In addition the information collected would inform strategic communication for social and behavior change interventions by government and partners including UNICEF. Furthermore the data contributed to the improvement of data and monitoring systems in the three counties. The primary objectives of the Turkana County survey are: 1. To provide up-to-date information for assessing the situation of children and women in Turkana County. 2. To generate data for the critical assessment of the progress made in various areas, and to put additional efforts in those areas that require more attention. 3. To furnish data needed for monitoring progress toward goals established in the Millennium Declaration, and other internationally agreed upon goals, as a basis for future action. 4. To collect disaggregated data for the identification of disparities, to allow for evidence based policy-making aimed at social inclusion of the most vulnerable. 5. To contribute to the generation of baseline data for the post-2015 agenda. 6. To validate data from other sources and the results of focused interventions. 7. To contribute to the improvement of data and monitoring systems in Kenya and to strengthen technical expertise in the design, implementation, and analysis of such systems.

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

• Individuals
• Households

Universe

The survey covered all de jure household members (usual residents), all women aged between 15-49 years and all children under 5 living in the household.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The primary objective of the sample design for the Turkana County MICS was to produce statistically reliable estimates of indicators, at county level. The urban and rural areas in Turkana County were the sampling strata. A multi-stage, stratified cluster sampling approach was used for the selection of the survey sample. MICS5 utilized the recently created fifth National Sample Survey and Evaluation Programe (NASSEP V) frame which is a household based master sampling frame developed and maintained by KNBS. The frame was implemented using a multi-tiered structure, in which a set of 4 sub-samples (C1, C2, C3, C4) were developed. It is based on the list of enumeration areas (EAs) from the 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census. The frame is stratified according to County and further into rural and urban. Each of the sub-samples is representative at county level and at national (i.e. Urban/rural) level and contains 1,340 clusters.

The Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) for the survey were clusters drawn from the NASSEP V sampling frame, so the first component of the probabilities and weights are based on that master sample. Within each stratum the PSUs for the MICS were selected independently from one of the subsamples of the master sample using Equal Probability Selection Method (EPSEM). A total of 58 clusters were selected from the master sample in this way.

Out of the 58 clusters selected for Turkana County, it was established that 30 had been listed more than six months prior to the start of the survey. These listing for these clusters was updated prior to selection of households. For this purpose, listing teams visited each cluster, and listed all occupied households. For the remaining 28 sample clusters a more recent listing was available, so it was used for selecting the sample households.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

A set of three questionnaires was used in the survey: 1. A household questionnaire which was administered to the household head or any other responsible member of the household. 2. A questionnaire for individual women administered in each household to all women age 15-49 years. 3. An under-5 questionnaire administered to mothers (or caretakers) for all children under-5 years living in the household

Cleaning operations

Data were entered into the computers using the Census and Surveys Processing System (CSPro) software package, Version 5.0. Data entry was done by a trained team of 14 data entry operators, one archivist/system administrator and one data entry supervisor. For quality assurance purposes, all questionnaires were double-entered and internal consistency checks performed.

Procedures and standard programs developed under the global MICS program and adapted to the Turkana County MICS questionnaire were used throughout. Data processing began simultaneously with data collection in November 2013 and was completed in February 2014. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, Version 21. Model syntax and tabulation plans developed by UNICEF were customized and used for this purpose.

Response rate

Information was collected from a total of 1,277 households representing 93 percent response rate. The composition of these households was 6,594 household members comprising 3,274 males and 3,321 females. The mean household size was 5.2 persons. About 49 percent of the sampled households population is below 15 years, 48 percent are age 15-64 years and three percent are age 65 years and above.

Due to data quality issues, data relating to mortality and anthropometric measures were not analyzed and reported. Anthropometric data suffered from digit preference for both weight and height, while for mortality, deaths especially among under-5 years old were under reported. KDHS 2014 had similar shortcomings.

Sampling error estimates

The sample of respondents selected in the Turkana County MICS is only one of the samples that could have been selected from the same population, using the same design and size. Each of these samples would yield results that differ somewhat from the results of the actual sample selected. Sampling errors are a measure of the variability between the estimates from all possible samples. The extent of variability is not known exactly, but can be estimated statistically from the survey data. The following sampling error measures are presented in this appendix for each of the selected indicators: - Standard error (se): Standard error is the square root of the variance of the estimate. For survey indicators those are means, proportions or ratios, the Taylor series linearization method is used for the estimation of standard errors. For more complex statistics, such as fertility and mortality rates, the Jackknife repeated replication method is used for standard error estimation. - Coefficient of variation (se/r) is the ratio of the standard error to the value (r) of the indicator, and is a measure of the relative sampling error. - Design effect (deff) is the ratio of the actual variance of an indicator, under the sampling method used in the survey, to the variance calculated under the assumption of simple random sampling based on the same sample size. The square root of the design effect (deft) is used to show the efficiency of the sample design in relation to the precision. A deft value of 1.0 indicates that the sample design of the survey is as efficient as a simple random sample for a particular indicator, while a deft value above 1.0 indicates an increase in the standard error due to the use of a more complex sample design. - Confidence limits are calculated to