Pursuant to Local Laws 126, 127, and 128 of 2016, certain demographic data is collected voluntarily and anonymously by persons voluntarily seeking social services. This data can be used by agencies and the public to better understand the demographic makeup of client populations and to better understand and serve residents of all backgrounds and identities.
The data presented here has been collected through either electronic form or paper surveys offered at the point of application for services. These surveys are anonymous.
Each record represents an anonymized demographic profile of an individual applicant for social services, disaggregated by response option, agency, and program. Response options include information regarding ancestry, race, primary and secondary languages, English proficiency, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
Idiosyncrasies or Limitations:
Note that while the dataset contains the total number of individuals who have identified their ancestry or languages spoke, because such data is collected anonymously, there may be instances of a single individual completing multiple voluntary surveys. Additionally, the survey being both voluntary and anonymous has advantages as well as disadvantages: it increases the likelihood of full and honest answers, but since it is not connected to the individual case, it does not directly inform delivery of services to the applicant. The paper and online versions of the survey ask the same questions but free-form text is handled differently. Free-form text fields are expected to be entered in English although the form is available in several languages. Surveys are presented in 11 languages.
Paper Surveys
1. Are optional
2. Survey taker is expected to specify agency that provides service
2. Survey taker can skip or elect not to answer questions
3. Invalid/unreadable data may be entered for survey date or date may be skipped
4. OCRing of free-form tet fields may fail.
5. Analytical value of free-form text answers is unclear
Online Survey
1. Are optional
2. Agency is defaulted based on the URL
3. Some questions must be answered
4. Date of survey is automated