User Population/Workload Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Approximately 50% of the people registered in the NDW are registered at more than one facility and might have differing data on file at each. How do you decide which version of the truth to use?

Virtually all of the registration records (see “Who is excluded?”) are put through the “Quality Stage” process to identify duplicates. “Quality Stage” is the software product selected and programmed with matching criteria agreed upon by the Office of Program Statistics and Area Statistical Officers at the time of the FY2001 reports.

For a given Area and INTEGRITY_ID (all of an Area’s registration records for what was determined by the software to be one physical person), the record with the most recently updated demographic data is used to determine whether a person is to be considered Indian (see “How do you decide who is an Indian?”) and where they reside.

If that most recently updated registration record, or any other records with the same Area and INTEGRITY_ID are “active,” then the unduplicated person is counted as active on the Area’s Userpop report.

For more information, refer to NPIRS Basic Business Rules [PDF - 557Kb]