An Evaluation of Hispanic Population Estimates for Counties in Florida

Stanley K. Smith, University of Florida
June M. Nogle, University of Florida

The Hispanic population of the United States has grown dramatically in recent decades. Although not all states and local areas have shared equally in this growth, rapid growth of the Hispanic population has occurred in many places throughout the United States. In this paper, we describe a methodology that uses birth, death, and school enrollment data to estimate the size of the Hispanic population. We test this methodology by developing estimates for Florida and each of its 67 counties and comparing those estimates with 2000 census counts. We compare the accuracy of these estimates with the accuracy of estimates based on several alternatiave estimation methods. We conclude that estimates based on symptomatic data series such as births, deaths, and school enrollment are more accurate than estimates based on commonly used alternative methods.