AHS Update: 2015 AHS Redesign Series – Utility Cost Estimation Model Development and Decisions

The fifth installment in the 2015 AHS Redesign Series – Utility Cost Estimation Model Development and Decisions for the 2015 American Housing Survey and Beyond, has been posted to the HUD User website.

One of the goals of the 2015 AHS redesign was to reduce respondent burden while maintaining data quality. HUD and Census researched estimating utility costs in the AHS in the absence of billing data provided by respondents. The research analyzes the performance of utility consumption and cost models that use housing characteristics, household characteristics, and climate data as inputs. In the paper, we discuss implications for housing burden estimates, a component of HUD’s Worst Case Housing Needs measure.

Thank you to the authors George R. Carter III (HUD) and Brian Shaffer (Census), who were responsible for informing utility estimation decisions for the 2015 AHS.

To read more, visit
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/American-Housing-Survey.html.

To view the entire 2015 AHS Redesign Series, visit
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/ahs/operations-and-administration/redesign-2015.html.