Nearly 1 in 5 Americans May Not Fill Out Census Form
January 21,2010
ABC News
By MATTHEW JAFFE
Nearly 20 percent of people say they are undecided about participating in this year’s census, the government’s once-a-decade attempt to paint a new portrait of the country.
According to a new poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, 10 percent of people said they might or might not participate, 4 percent probably will not, 2 percent definitely will not, and another 2 percent do not yet know if they will take part.
The census kicks off later this year when the 10-question form arrives in mailboxes nationwide in March, followed by National Census Day on April 1.
When Pew interviewed over 1,500 adults by phone from Jan. 6-10, they found that 58 percent of Americans will definitely participate in the survey, while another 23 percent probably will.
But a lack of awareness about what the census does, the Pew poll found, is a key factor in determining participation.
“The key driver of uncertainty about participation is lack of awareness about the census and what it’s used for,” said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center, in an interview with ABC News.
For instance, 21 percent of people incorrectly said that the census is not used to decide how government tax revenues are distributed, while another 20 percent said they did not know.
“The more general problem, I think, is that people don’t understand why it’s valuable to take part in the census,” Keeter said.
For the federal government’s Census Bureau, getting Americans to take part in the decennial count is not only crucial, but it is also cost-effective. For every 1 percent increase in the number of people who mail back their census forms, the bureau saves $80 million.
But a recent analysis conducted by the bureau predicted a possible 3 percent decrease in mailed-back forms this year, due to recent increases in government mistrust, identity theft, and home foreclosures.
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Autism Rates Double
October 5, 2009
ABC News
By Lauren Cox and Sarah Sargenti
Parents are reporting cases of autism at double the rate of the last U.S. government survey in 2003, prompting calls for more research and spawning doubts about the true number of children affected.
Researchers estimate that now 1.1 percent, or 1 in 91 children, were told they had a disorder on the autism spectrum, according to a parent survey on the health of more than 78,000 children included in the National Survey of Children’s Health. The last survey, conducted in 2003, estimated just 0.57 percent of children had autism.
But whether a change in diagnosis criteria or some factor in the children’s environment, or a combination of the two, led to the jump in reported cases remains unclear.
“This survey means that there are a whole lot of families struggling with this and not enough resources,” said Rita Sheffler, a mother of a child with autism and a member of the National Autism Association. “We need more funding and research and need it right away. If children don’t receive appropriate treatments at a young age, there aren’t enough facilities for adults and society is not prepared if they do not find meaningful treatments.”
Although many doctors are fighting for research dollars to investigate autism, specialists do not necessarily trust the numbers as an official estimate, especially because the survey wasn’t set up to confirm or explore each time a parent reported an autism diagnosis.
“This should not be the ‘official’ estimate,” said Dr. Max Wiznitzer, a pediatric neurologist at University Hospitals in Cleveland.
“While the authors state that the survey results and previous surveys are similar to results of reviews of records, both have a limitation — the assumption that the parent report and the records accurately reflect the diagnosis,” he said
Some of the reporting seemed to match to well-documented statistics, such as the fact that boys were four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls in the survey, a commonly known gender difference in the autism community.
However, the high rate of recovery from autism reported by the parents raised the suspicions of doctors.
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