Some individuals and families are “hard to count” during a census.
The Census Bureau considers a census tract HTC if it had a self-response rate in the bottom 20% nationally during the 2010 census. By definition, all tracts with a mail return rate – the first step of the census – of 73% or less are considered HTC. The HTC population often includes people of color, young children, those with low incomes, those who rent and/or those who are foreign-born.
- The map to the left shows New York’s HTC areas by census tract; the graph below shows the mail return rate distribution of New Yorkers.
- The areas with the darkest shade of red reflect census tracts with the lowest mail return rates; the light grey areas reflect census tracts with the highest mail return rates.
Explore your market area.
Each hospital’s market area has unique population challenges that may lead to undercounting. HANYS has isolated New York hospital market areas to help hospital leaders understand the HTC areas you serve.
- Shown here is the market area of NYC Health + Hospitals / Kings County – the hospital servicing New York’s most HTC population.
- Select your hospital to explore your market.
- 's market area contains total census tracts.
- The census tracts in this area have had an average mail return rate of %.
- of the tracts in this area (%) are considered HTC and have a mail return rate at or below 73%.
Explore your HTC population.
Understanding the characteristics of the HTC population you serve is important when identifying ways to educate your patients about the importance of participating in the 2020 census.
- Using the graphics, maps and interactive features to the left you can explore the characteristics of communities that are identified as HTC leveraging census data on population and household makeup, English language proficiency and income.
- Several American Community Survey indicators covering demographics, household characteristics and language are shown below to compare to census tract mail return rates.
Density plots (as shown and described below) visualize the distribution of census tracts on each indicator where the height represents the relative number of tracts at or around that number. Below each graph lines are provided to show statewide and market area averages.
