Hi I'm Mary Leisenring.
Have you ever wondered
how to sort through over 120 of our surveys
to find the data you're looking for?
Perhaps you'd like to find which surveys have race data,
or which offer data on a monthly basis,
or even which surveys are offered
both monthly and have race data.
We have a solution,
a tool,
called Census Survey Explorer.
So, if you want to save time researching and reading
through multiple web pages to find information
we have a treat for you.
Census Survey Explorer
has added the critical information you'll want to know
to our entire list of surveys and censuses,
such as
the topics or subjects covered in each survey,
the available geographies,
the frequency of data publication
and the year data started being published.
Now,
you can search for the most relevant surveys based on your criteria.
For example,
if you only want to see surveys that are available annually
and have data on children
we've got you covered!
In this data gem let's demonstrate how to use the tool
and show you how to use some of the support
information included in the tools guidance pages.
You can find the tool at census.gov/survey explorer
You have a couple of ways that you can use this tool
you can use the search bar,
the drop-down menus,
or a combination of both.
First, let's use the drop-down menus
for my earlier site of the example of wanting to find data
on the subtopic of children released on an annual frequency.
Starting with the frequencies drop-down
find and check annual.
Then,
from the subtopics drop-down,
to find children
you can scroll through the options in alphabetical order
or you can use the search bar within the drop-down
to type in some letters
c-h-i and here it is.
Looks like we've narrowed down the surveys that meet our criteria to about
nine surveys.
Note that your selections appear right here under the blue banner.
Say you want to add a geography criterion
selecting zip code from the geographies drop-down
we see that one survey populates.
Let me show you one more situation.
Say I wanted the most timely data or recent data on children.
I'm going to select monthly from the
frequencies drop-down.
Uh oh, I see the search has returned zero results.
You may have to balance out your frequency and geography needs
simply uncheck the option and try to make selections that are the next best choice
to see what shows up.
So, if I want to prioritize the timeliness of the data
I will keep monthly checked and uncheck zip code
now we see one survey meets the criteria of monthly frequency.
We don't need to look for a geography since we've been narrowed down to one choice,
but if we read the information about the survey
we see it's offered at the nation and state levels,
as well as another option titled other.
We will discuss what other means shortly.
Note, that when making multiple selections,
the tool will only populate surveys that offer all of those selections.
Clicking on the more button,
will open up some more information that was hidden.
When you have narrowed down to your best choices
simply click on the survey name from either this open card here
or if you close this card you can click on the name
from the main page as well.
From there you will find reports and documentation,
news,
guidance,
data links
or data tools
that contain data from the survey.
The Census Bureau conducts surveys for other agencies
so you may be taken to the agency's page
to search for data and more information.
You may have noticed that there was a category of other,
in frequencies and geographies.
To simplify the tool
we took our less prevalent geographies and frequencies and classified them under other.
You can find a list of our Census Bureau geographies,
on this guidance page titled geographies
and if we scroll down to other,
you can see all the geographies listed under this other selection.
So, if you're looking for information on congressional districts for example
click on other in the tool.
Going to the guidance page titled frequencies
and scrolling down to other
shows us which frequencies were categorized as other.
Another way to search is using the search bar
keep in mind that this is not an internet-based search and it will
simply extract and find words that are in the descriptions
and data present in this webpage.
Spelling does matter
and you shouldn't use the search bar to ask a data question
like how many Americans live in Montana.
Press the reset button to easily clear all prior selections
and start a fresh search.
Let's search for the term American Indian
which will populate all the surveys that mention these words.
We can now use the drop-downs
to help us filter the type of data we are looking for further but
it looks like we have just one survey populating,
Hmmph.
I know that we have more surveys available than that
so I want to show you the guidance page titled topics and subtopics now.
We know that some of us may use different terminology or think of
different search terms than others.
You could scroll through the subtopics drop-down to see the options
but you could also use this page that shows you the subtopic terms
nested under the broader topics to help you be more successful in your search.
There may be duplicates
for example,
you can find the subtopic expenditures
underneath the economic topic
and the social topic.
This guidance page also teaches you more
about how to use the subtopics and topics drop-downs interchangeably.
Here under the demographic topic
we see that we should select race
to see surveys and programs related to race data.
Back in our tool,
let's do that,
by selecting race from the subtopics drop-down.
Okay, so we see there are many options
but let's pose a scenario that I really don't need data on all American Indians
across the nation or in an individual state.
That I’m only interested in data within a tribal area.
Let's see what we have under geography.
Okay great,
I see tribal areas here,
but if it wasn't I would need to select other.
Let's use our topics filter now because I
want to see economic data
for American Indians living in tribal areas.
Okay, it looks like I have two surveys to explore.
If you have questions while using the survey explorer, you can visit our help
page which has some frequently asked questions and instructions.
If you still have a question, you can email us at census.askdata@census.gov
or if you have feedback
look at the bottom of the page,
click on the thumbs up or thumbs down here
and again, on comments and suggestions.
We hope you found this data gem on Census Survey Explorer useful.
To find more videos like this go to census.gov/academy.
While you're there,
be sure to subscribe
so you never miss an opportunity to learn with us.
Thanks for watching!