Making National Data Local: Using American FactFinder to Describe Local Hispanic Communities

Author

Marta Alvira-Hammond

Elizabeth Wildsmith

NOTE: The U.S. Census Bureau retired its American FactFinder tool on March 31, 2020. Data releases formerly found on American FactFinder, and new releases moving forward, can now be found on data.census.gov. Learn more about the transition.

Local agencies and leaders work hard to meet the service needs of low-income Hispanic populations in their communities. Having up-to-date, high-quality information on the local Hispanic population—and the diversity within this population—is critical. In this guide, we describe how agencies can use the U.S. Census Bureau’s American FactFinder tool to get data from the American Community Survey (ACS) for their local area. We also demonstrate how to generate results answering these questions for multiple time periods, how to export American FactFinder results into user-friendly tables, and how to interpret some basic results.

This website is supported by Grant Number 90PH0032 from the Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services totaling $7.84 million with 99 percentage funded by ACF/HHS and 1 percentage funded by non-government sources. Neither the Administration for Children and Families nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse this website (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided). The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Administration for Children and Families and the Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation.