cchmc_batch_geocoder

A docker container for geocoding, assigning census tract, and deprivation index to addresses

🛑 The cchmc_batch_geocoder is now out of date. Please consider using our updated geocoder instead. 🛑

Quick Start

This DeGAUSS container condenses the sequence of (1) geocoding street addresses with a custom geocoder based on 2015 TIGER/Line address range files , (2) joining the geocodes to a 2010 census tract shapefile from NHGIS using the epsg:5072 projection, and (3) adding census tract level data from the community deprivation index all into a single image.

To run, navigate to the directory containing a CSV file with a column called address and call:

docker run --rm=TRUE -v $PWD:/tmp degauss/cchmc_batch_geocoder my_address_file.csv

Results and Diagnostic Output

The container tries to simplify interpretation of the geocoding results with some new columns:

• bad_address: TRUE for Cincinnati foster & institutional addresses, “foreign”, “verify”, “unknown”, and missing addresses
• PO: TRUE if a Post Office (PO) box
• precise_geocode: TRUE if geocoding result had a precision method of “street” or “range” and a score of > 0.5

If precise_geocode is FALSE, this means that the address was geocoded but probably not well enough to accurately place it in a census tract. The lat and lon columns and the corresponding census tract variables (like fips_tract_id, dep_index, etc…) for these are set to missing since we cannot accurately place them at a coordinate and in a census tract.

The addresses that are not successfully geocoded are still in the output file, but all moved to the top. This allows for quick examination of these addresses for errors. After edits are made, rerun the container. The successful geocodes are cached locally in a folder called geocoding_cache so that the geocoding process is never repeated, but instead read from disk. This makes the process of manually editing problematic addresses and rerunning the edited file through the container very quick.

Address String Formatting

If your address components are in different columns, you will need to paste them together into a single string. Below are some tips that will help optimize geocoding accuracy and precision:

• separate the different address components with a space
• do not include apartment numbers or “second address line” (but its okay if you can’t remove them)
• zip codes must be five digits (i.e. 32709) and not “plus four” (i.e. 32709-0000)
• do not try to geocode addresses without a valid 5 digit zip code; this is used by the geocoder to complete its initial searches and if attempted, it will likely return incorrect matches
• spelling should be as accurate as possible, but the program does complete “fuzzy matching” so an exact match is not necessary
• capitalization does not affect results
• abbreviations may be used (i.e. St. instead of Street or OH instead of Ohio)
• use arabic numerals instead of written numbers (i.e. 13 instead of thirteen)
• address strings with out of order items could return NA (i.e. 3333 Burnet Ave Cincinnati 45229 OH)

DeGAUSS

To find more information on how to install Docker and use DeGAUSS, see the DeGAUSS README or our publications in JAMIA or JOSS.

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