News Release

Estimating population without census surveys

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Map of High-Resolution Gridded Population Estimates around Lagos, Nigeria

image: Map of high-resolution gridded population estimates around Lagos, Nigeria. view more 

Credit: Image credit: Douglas Ryan Leasure

A study finds that a Bayesian modeling framework, applied to the population of each 100-m grid cell in Nigeria, can estimate the population in each section with an overall error rate of 67 people per hectare in areas not covered by a microcensus survey; the results suggest that similar frameworks may be able to estimate population in resource-poor or conflict-affected areas where regular census surveys are not feasible.

###

Article #19-13050: "National population mapping from sparse survey data: A hierarchical Bayesian modeling framework to account for uncertainty," by Douglas R. Leasure, Warren C. Jochem, Eric M. Weber, Vincent Seaman, and Andrew J. Tatem.

MEDIA CONTACT: Douglas R. Leasure, University of Southampton, UNITED KINGDOM; e-mail: <doug.leasure@gmail.com>


Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.