Getting and visualizing Census data
Navigating Factfinder
Getting the data
- What kind of geography?
- Which survey?
- Which dataset?
Go to factfinder.census.gov and click on Advanced Search.
What kind of geography?
Big (ex. state):
+High level of confidence it's right-Low definition
Small (ex. tract):
+Very high definition-Very low confidence it's right
ZIP code tabulation area
... because ZIP codes aren't areas. More info.
Click Geographies.
Select a geographic type:
- 5-Digit ZIP Code tabulation area
Select a state:
- Connecticut
Select one or more...
- All 5-Digit ZIP... within Connecticut
Click Add to your selections.
Which survey?
- Every 10 years, a comprehensive Census
- Every year, American Communities Survey
- Small percent of people surveyed. More info.
So, which survey?
We want the Five-Digit Zip Code Tabulation
ACS Five-year estimates
Click Topics.
Click People.
Click Insurance Coverage.
Look for HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE STATUS.
Click Download
Make sure Include descriptive data element names is selected.
Click OK and then Download the zip file.
Inside the zip file...
This is what the data looks like.
It includes specifics such as margin of error and percent.
However, we want to turn this into a visualization, so we need to get rid of extra row in the header.
Let's bring the edited data set into CartoDB.
Uh oh.. Looks like the column names are too similar.
We need to create a new spreadsheet to focus on just the columns we want.
Find the column of Percent uninsured and the column of Margin of error for it.
Create a new sheet with just those columns as well as the identifier columns: Id, Id2, and Geography.
Save the file and upload it to CartoDB.
We've got the data. Now we want to bring a shape to it.
Go back to Connect dataset and paste in this link (I've saved you the trouble of having to look up the shapefile zip codes in Connecticut)
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1e3WTW59qG7EEV6KBM1YLeNJcBf_aP_tod3RS0ko
Click Connect.
Click Merge.
Select the cleaned up uninsured dataset you created and join it by id.
Click Merge datasets.
Click Visualize, click Wizard and select Choropleth.
Go to the pulldown menu and select percent_uninsured.