Household Structure – Older Adults Living Alone
This indicator reports the percentage of households occupied by a single older adult (age 65+). This indicator is important because older adults who live alone are vulnerable populations who may have challenges accessing basic needs, including health needs.
Source
Source Description
The American Community Survey (ACS) is a nationwide survey designed to provide communities with reliable and timely social, economic, housing, and demographic data every year. The ACS has an annual sample size of about 3.5 million addresses, with survey information collected nearly every day of the year. Data are pooled across a calendar year to produce estimates for that year. As a result, ACS estimates reflect data that have been collected over a period of time rather than for a single point in time as in the decennial census, which is conducted every 10 years and provides population counts as of April 1. The Census Bureau combines 5 consecutive years of ACS data to produce estimates for geographic areas with fewer than 65,000 residents. These 5-year estimates represent data collected over a period of 60 months. Because the ACS is based on a sample, rather than all housing units and people, ACS estimates have a degree of uncertainty associated with them, called sampling error. In general, the larger the sample, the smaller the level of sampling error. Data users should be careful in drawing conclusions about small differences between two ACS estimates because they may not be statistically different.
For more information about this source, including data collection methodology and definitions, refer to the American Community Survey data user’s website.
Methodology
Counts of households are acquired from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. A household includes all the people who occupy a housing unit. (People not living in households are classified as living in group quarters.) A housing unit is a house, an apartment, a mobile home, a group of rooms, or a single room that is occupied (or if vacant, is intended for occupancy) as separate living quarters. Households are categorized by variables including size (number of occupants), family arrangement (presence of relatives), and by the presence of individuals of specific age groups (children under age 18, adults over age 65). Data represent estimates for the 5-year period 2019-2023. Mapped data are summarized to 2023 census tract boundaries.
For more information on the data reported in the American Community Survey, please see the complete American Community Survey 2023 Subject Definitions.
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