A couple of years ago I asked a question about some place of work information from the NHS that seemed to indicate a coding error. People whose residence did not seem to make sense were seen to be working in the Village of Gagetown. Of course, it turned out that there was a coding error based on respondents entries, and that the place of work was actually [CFB] Gagetown. I have another such question from the same researcher.
In looking through the 2011 commuter flow table (99-012-x2011032) for the Chipman/Minto area, he noticed that 45 people are listed as having their place of residence in Red Bank First Nation (Red Bank 4) and their place of work in Chipman Parish. Given that Red Bank First Nation is more than an hour's drive to Chipman Parish, and given that there's also an area in Chipman Parish called Redbank, he's wondering what he can count on with respect to this data. He's aware that "place of residence" is the location where respondents are enumerated and does not necessarily represent where respondents were at the time of the NHS; however, given his knowledge of the area he thought the numbers didn't seem realistic and that it might be possible that an error had occurred. He's not sure, though, so he wanted to see if we could double check on this.
Answer:
Thank you for your feedback and observations of the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS) data on place of work (commuting flows).
Aboriginal reserves and settlements have always been a challenge for the automated and manual coding processes in place of work. Some have names that are similar, or identical except for numbers associated with them. We are also dependent on the respondent to fill out their place of work information as completely and accurately as possible. We try to do the best we can at getting them coded correctly.
After investigating the data, it appears as if the records in question should probably have been associated with Red Bank 4 and not Chipman. Unfortunately the processes in place for that cycle did not catch this particular issue.
We continue to work on improving our POW coding and verification processes, and hopefully for 2016 and future cycles you will see such improvements reflected in the data.
