| Epidemiological Bulletin: Fall 2001 (Part 4 of 4)
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The 1990s: A Decade of Change for the Distribution of Local Ethnic Populations
Scott Nabity, MPH (Epidemiologist)
The table below displays the actual and proportionate change in San Mateo County population during the last de-cade. When data from the 1990 U.S. Census are compared with that recently tabulated for 2000, at least three major observations should be noted: 1) dramatic gains in Hispanic and Asian/PIpopulations, 2) similarly dramaticlossesinblack and white populations, and 3) the effects of inclusion of multiple racial and ethnic designations for Year 2000 respondents.
Table 1 .Demographic Change,SMC, as Indicated by 1990 and 2000 Census Data
These data describe a rapidly changing local population. While it is clear that a demographic shift has taken place in the County, it is also evident that this change over the last decade has resulted from new residents moving in as well an out-migration of former residents. Approximately 52,000 legal foreign immigrants arrived in SMC during 1990-1998, the period for which the most recent data are available (2c).
Assuming that legal immigration remained constant during 1999-2000, an additional 12,000 immigrants are expected to have arrived during that time. Taken together, then, SMC added an estimated 64,000 residents from legal foreign im-migration. This figure alone exceeds the 57,000-person net gain in County population enumerated in Table 1 and does not even account for other sources of population growth, including domestic immigration and live births (Figure 1). There were approximately 53,000 more births certified than there were deaths during this period (3). It is not surprising, then, that despite substantial foreign immigration, only 15 California counties had a proportionate increase between 1990 and 2000 that was smaller than the 8.9% experienced by SMC. For the first time, the 2000 U.S. Census allowed respondents to choose more than one race and/or ethnicity.
Although many of those who did or would have identified with one of the groups experiencing a decrease in 1990 switched to the other or multi-ethnic/multi-racial categories in 2000, at most, this could have accounted for only up to about 50% of these net losses, as 25,349 individuals declared themselves in one of these groups and the net loss to the former race categories exceeded 51,000. While additional race and ethnicity designations make public health demography a more precise science, they will make comparing future racial/ethnic disease rates with those calculated using pre-2000 Census data more challenging in the near term. Additional updates may appear in future issues of the Bulletin as DCPU epidemiologists investigate the determinants of these and other demographic shifts using available data.
References:
1. U.S. Census Bureau
2. California Department of Finance
a) County Population Projections by Age, Sex and Race/Ethnic Detail, 1970- 2040 (1996).
b) Population Change 1990-2000, Incorporated Cities by County (2001).
c) Legal Immigration to California by County: Federal FiscalYear(FFY)1990-1998 (2000).
d) Refugee Immigration to California, 1990- 1994: A Summary in Tables (1996).
e) Legal Foreign Immigration to California: Size and Characteristics of the Flow According to the INS Statistics for1993(1995).
3. SMCVital Records (1990-1999), Disease Control and Prevention Unit
Figure 1.Population Dynamics,Major Components of Change, SMC, 1990-2000 (Net Change +57,538).
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