An improved BISG for inferring race from surname and geolocation

Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG) is a ubiquitous tool for predicting race and ethnicity using an individual's geolocation and surname. Here we demonstrate that statistical dependence of surname and geolocation within racial/ethnic categories in the United States results in biases for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-02
Main Authors: Greengard, Philip, Gelman, Andrew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Elections
Race
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG) is a ubiquitous tool for predicting race and ethnicity using an individual's geolocation and surname. Here we demonstrate that statistical dependence of surname and geolocation within racial/ethnic categories in the United States results in biases for minority subpopulations, and we introduce a raking-based improvement. Our method augments the data used by BISG--distributions of race by geolocation and race by surname--with the distribution of surname by geolocation obtained from state voter files. We validate our algorithm on state voter registration lists that contain self-identified race/ethnicity.
ISSN:2331-8422