This book helps practitioners gain a deeper understanding, at an applied level, of the issues involved in improving data quality through editing, imputation, and record linkage. The first part of the book deals with methods and models. Here, we focus on the Fellegi-Holt edit-imputation model, the Little-Rubin multiple-imputation scheme, and the Fellegi-Sunter record linkage model. Brief examples are included to show how these techniques work. In the second part of the book, the authors present real-world case studies in which one or more of these techniques are used. They cover a wide variety of application areas. These include mortgage guarantee insurance, medical, biomedical, highway safety, and social insurance as well as the construction of list frames and administrative lists. Readers will find this book a mixture of practical advice, mathematical rigor, management insight and philosophy. The long list of references at the end of the book enables readers to delve more deeply into the subjects discussed here. The authors also discuss the software that has been developed to apply the techniques described in our text.

Thomas N. Herzog, Ph.D., ASA is the Chief Actuary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Fritz J. Scheuren, Ph.D., is a Vice President for Statistics with the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago William E. Winkler, Ph.D., is Principal Researcher at the U.S. Census Bureau

Preface	p. v
About the Authors	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Audience and Objective	p. 1
Scope	p. 1
Structure	p. 2
Data Quality: What It is, Why It is Important, and How to Achieve It
What Is Data Quality and Why Should We Care?	p. 7
When Are Data of High Quality?	p. 7
Why Care About Data Quality?	p. 10
How Do You Obtain High-Quality Data?	p. 11
Practical Tips	p. 13
Where Are We Now?	p. 13
Examples of Entities Using Data to their Advantage/Disadvantage	p. 17
Data Quality as a Competitive Advantage	p. 17
Data Quality Problems and their Consequences	p. 20
How Many People Really Live to 100 and Beyond? Views from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom	p. 25
Disabled Airplane Pilots - A Successful Application of Record Linkage	p. 26
Completeness and Accuracy of a Billing Database: Why It Is Important to the Bottom Line	p. 26
Where Are We Now?	p. 27
Properties of Data Quality and Metrics for Measuring It	p. 29
Desirable Properties of Databases/Lists	p. 29
Examples of Merging Two or More Lists and the Issues that May Arise	p. 31
Metrics Used when Merging Lists	p. 33
Where Are We Now?	p. 35
Basic Data Quality Tools	p. 37
Data Elements	p. 37
Requirements Document	p. 38
A Dictionary of Tests	p. 39
Deterministic Tests	p. 40
Probabilistic Tests	p. 44
Exploratory Data Analysis Techniques	p. 44
Minimizing Processing Errors	p. 46
Practical Tips	p. 46
Where Are We Now?	p. 48
Specialized Tools for Database Improvement
Mathematical Preliminaries for Specialized Data Quality Techniques	p. 51
Conditional Independence	p. 51
Statistical Paradigms	p. 53
Capture-Recapture Procedures and Applications	p. 54
Automatic Editing and Imputation of Sample Survey Data	p. 61
Introduction	p. 61
Early Editing Efforts	p. 63
Fellegi-Holt Model for Editing	p. 64
Practical Tips	p. 65
Imputation	p. 66
Constructing a Unified Edit/Imputation Model	p. 71
Implicit Edits - A Key Construct of Editing Software	p. 73
Editing Software	p. 75
Is Automatic Editing Taking Up Too Much Time and Money?	p. 78
Selective Editing	p. 79
Tips on Automatic Editing and Imputation	p. 79
Where Are We Now?	p. 80
Record Linkage - Methodology	p. 81
Introduction	p. 81
Why Did Analysts Begin Linking Records?	p. 82
Deterministic Record Linkage	p. 82
Probabilistic Record Linkage - A Frequentist Perspective	p. 83
Probabilistic Record Linkage - A Bayesian Perspective	p. 91
Where Are We Now?	p. 92
Estimating the Parameters of the Fellegi-Sunter Record Linkage Model	p. 93
Basic Estimation of Parameters Under Simple Agreement/Disagreement Patterns	p. 93
Parameter Estimates Obtained via Frequency-Based Matching	p. 94
Parameter Estimates Obtained Using Data from Current Files	p. 96
Parameter Estimates Obtained via the EM Algorithm	p. 97
Advantages and Disadvantages of Using the EM Algorithm to Estimate m- and u-probabilities	p. 101
General Parameter Estimation Using the EM Algorithm	p. 103
Where Are We Now?	p. 106
Standardization and Parsing	p. 107
Obtaining and Understanding Computer Files	p. 109
Standardization of Terms	p. 110
Parsing of Fields	p. 111
Where Are We Now?	p. 114
Phonetic Coding Systems for Names	p. 115
Soundex System of Names	p. 115
NYSIIS Phonetic Decoder	p. 119
Where Are We Now?	p. 121
Blocking	p. 123
Independence of Blocking Strategies	p. 124
Blocking Variables	p. 125
Using Blocking Strategies to Identify Duplicate List Entries	p. 126
Using Blocking Strategies to Match Records Between Two Sample Surveys	p. 128
Estimating the Number of Matches Missed	p. 130
Where Are We Now?	p. 130
String Comparator Metrics for Typographical Error	p. 131
Jaro String Comparator Metric for Typographical Error	p. 131
Adjusting the Matching Weight for the Jaro String Comparator	p. 133
Winkler String Comparator Metric for Typographical Error	p. 133
Adjusting the Weights for the Winkler Comparator Metric	p. 134
Where are We Now?	p. 135
Record Linkage Case Studies
Duplicate FHA Single-Family Mortgage Records: A Case Study of Data Problems, Consequences, and Corrective Steps	p. 139
Introduction	p. 139
FHA Case Numbers on Single-Family Mortgages	p. 141
Duplicate Mortgage Records	p. 141
Mortgage Records with an Incorrect Termination Status	p. 145
Estimating the Number of Duplicate Mortgage Records	p. 148
Record Linkage Case Studies in the Medical, Biomedical, and Highway Safety Areas	p. 151
Biomedical and Genetic Research Studies	p. 151
Who goes to a Chiropractor?	p. 153
National Master Patient Index	p. 154
Provider Access to Immunization Register Securely (PAiRS) System	p. 155
Studies Required by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991	p. 156
Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System	p. 157
Constructing List Frames and Administrative Lists	p. 159
National Address Register of Residences in Canada	p. 160
USDA List Frame of Farms in the United States	p. 162
List Frame Development for the US Census of Agriculture	p. 165
Post-enumeration Studies of US Decennial Census	p. 166
Social Security and Related Topics	p. 169
Hidden Multiple Issuance of Social Security Numbers	p. 169
How Social Security Stops Benefit Payments after Death	p. 173
CPS-IRS-SSA Exact Match File	p. 175
Record Linkage and Terrorism	p. 177
Other Topics
Confidentiality: Maximizing Access to Micro-data while Protecting Privacy	p. 181
Importance of High Quality of Data in the Original File	p. 182
Documenting Public-use Files	p. 183
Checking Re-identifiability	p. 183
Elementary Masking Methods and Statistical Agencies	p. 186
Protecting Confidentiality of Medical Data	p. 193
More-advanced Masking Methods - Synthetic Datasets	p. 195
Where Are We Now?	p. 198
Review of Record Linkage Software	p. 201
Government	p. 201
Commercial	p. 202
Checklist for Evaluating Record Linkage Software	p. 203
Summary Chapter	p. 209
Bibliography	p. 211
Index	p. 221
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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