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  • 1.  Combining small zip codes in complex survey

    Posted 05-25-2016 13:44

    Dear community members,

    Some agencies make subject-level survey public based on complex surveys.

    They often combine smaller ZCTA areas with their neighbors (however neighborhood is defined) to avoid "disclosure risk" (i.e. a subject becoming identifiable by combinations of variables).

    Please let me know if you can recommend literature about the methods that tries to minimizes the disclosure risk.

    Best,

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    Ryung S. Kim
    Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health
    Albert Einstein College of Medicine
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  • 2.  RE: Combining small zip codes in complex survey

    Posted 05-25-2016 23:01

    There's been extensive literature on the topic in the past 10-15 years. There are book-length treatments (http://www.amazon.com/Synthetic-Datasets-Statistical-Disclosure-Control/dp/1461403251; http://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Disclosure-Control-Anco-Hundepool/dp/1119978157); practices by federal agencies (https://www.census.gov/srd/sdc/); review articles (http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/76/1/163.abstract). Pick and choose.

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    Stanislav Kolenikov
    Principal Survey Scientist
    Abt SRBI
    Education Officer, Survey Research Methods Section