Retrieve American Community Survey data for SVI variables

This function uses tidycensus::get_acs() with a pre-defined list of variables to retrieves ACS data for SVI calculation. Note that a Census API key is required for this function to work, which can be obtained at https://api.census.gov/data/key_signup.html and set up using tidycensus::census_api_key().

Usage

get_census_data(
  year,
  geography,
  state = NULL,
  county = NULL,
  key = NULL,
  geometry = FALSE,
  exp = FALSE,
  ...
)

Arguments

year: The year of interest (available 2010-2022).
geography: The geography of interest (eg. state, county, zcta, tract)
state: (Optional) Specify the state of interest. If data for multiple states are retrieved together, ranking for SVI calculation will be performed among all states. state = NULL as default, or state = 'US' return nation-level data.
county: (Optional) Specify the county(s) of interest, must be combined with a value supplied to "state".
key: Your Census API key. Obtain one at https://api.census.gov/data/key_signup.html. Include it in this argument or set up your key using tidycensus::census_api_key("YOUR KEY GOES HERE").
geometry: Default as FALSE for a regular tibble of census data. If set as TRUE, returns a tibble with an additional geometry column containing simple feature geometry.
exp: Default as FALSE for retrieving EP_(percent estimate) variables directly from ACS when available (as described in CDC/ADSTR SVI dictionary (https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/placeandhealth/svi/data_documentation_download.html)). If set as TRUE, uses explicitly defined denominators and retrieves the ACS data to calculate the EP variables for easier aggregation in downstream analysis (e.g. get_svi_x()).
...: Other arguments; more details please see tidycensus::get_acs()

Value

A tibble of ACS data with each row represents an enumeration (geographic) unit and each column represents a census variable ("wide" form).

Examples

if (FALSE) { # Sys.getenv("CENSUS_API_KEY") != ""
# Census API key required
 get_census_data(
    year = 2018,
    geography = "county",
    state = "PA"
  )
}