The communications campaign for the 2010 U.S. Census was a major public expenditure that had great potential to affect the quality and cost of the decennial census. NORC was selected to conduct a rigorous and independent evaluation of the communications campaign for the 2010 Census to assess the campaign's success and help preparations for the 2020 Census. This evaluation focuses on whether the campaign was successful in increasing the mail response rate; improving the overall accuracy of the census and reducing differential undercounting of population subgroups; and improving cooperation with census enumerators -- all by directly and indirectly influencing public awareness, attitudes, intentions, and ultimate behaviors.

NORC's approach to the evaluation involved conducting hybrid (cross-sectional/longitudinal) surveys with address-based probability samples of U.S. households and oversampling minority populations and other target segments. Data collection was completed in 2010. Analytic work continues into 2012.