Getting the Foundations Right
Spatial Building Blocks for Official Population Statistics
Bibliographic Data
When publishing official population statistics, many national statistical organisations define small areas termed 'building blocks' which are then aggregated into larger 'output zones' for data release. While output zones are known to have enormous influence on spatial analysis, there has not been any systematic analysis of the effect of building blocks on characteristics of output zones. This paper evaluates current international practice in building block design, identifying key conceptual and practical issues. Using the example of six local authorities in England and Wales, it employs automated zone design to evaluate the influence of two sets of building blocks (street blocks and postcodes) on output zone characteristics. Household-level census data, accessed under secure conditions, are used to evaluate the impact on both newly designed and maintained output zones. Postcodes are shown to be more effective building blocks than street blocks, providing more uniform population and household sizes, greater precision for matching postcoded data to census data, and enabling more zones to be maintained. However, street blocks deliver more compact output zones and greater internal homogeneity of tenure and accommodation type. The scale effect of the modifiable areal unit problem and the specific geographical patterning of variables are both shown to be important factors when designing building blocks. These findings have directly informed policies and processes for the 2011 Census in England and Wales and provide useful conceptual and practical guidance for any national statistical organisation or analyst designing their own building blocks. The paper concludes that some aspects of international building block design practice could be more effectively harmonised but that such design should always be nationally specific to incorporate locally varying conceptual and practical issues. Further research should extend this analysis to other building block types, notably grid squares
Accommodation · Cartography · Census · Data science · Econometrics · Geography · Official statistics · Population · Regional science · Sociology · Statistics · Computer Science · demographic modeling and climate adaptation · Health disparities and outcomes · Mathematics · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
Population and societies.
Statistical applications in the spatial sciences
Neighbourhood variations in child accidents and related child and maternal characteristics
On the Nature of Neighbourhood
Last of the censuses? The future of small area population data
Spatial Dependency of Segregation Indices
The quality and qualities of population statistics, and the place of the census
Zone design for environment and health studies using pre-aggregated data
Neighbourhood effects on health
Maintaining Existing Zoning Systems Using Automated Zone-Design Techniques
Using Census Data to Investigate the Causes of the Ecological Fallacy
The Application of Zone-Design Methodology in the 2001 UK Census
Population Georeferencing in England and Wales
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