Occupants per room is obtained by dividing the reported number of current residents in each occupied housing unit by the number of rooms in the unit. The figures show the number of occupied units having the specified ratio of current residents per room. Occupants per room is rounded to the nearest hundredth.
This data is the basis for estimating the amount of living and sleeping spaces within a housing unit. The data also serve to aid in planning for future services and infrastructure, such as home energy assistance programs and the development of waste treatment facilities.

Comparability

Caution should be used when comparing American Community Survey data on occupants per room from the years 2008 and after with both pre-2008 data. Changes made to the rooms question between the 2007 and 2008 ACS involving the wording as well as the response option resulted in an inconsistency in the ACS data. This inconsistency in the data was most noticeable in a 2006 content test with the revised question showing an increase in "1 room" responses, decrease in "2 rooms" to "6 rooms" responses, and increases in "7 rooms" and "9 or more" room responses, with an overall increase in the median number of rooms reported using the revised question.

Data on occupants per room in the American Community Survey should be compared with great caution to Census 2000 data due to: 1) differences in residence rules and the absence of population controls used to adjust for undercoverage in the reported number of current residents in the ACS used in this measure and 2) differences in the reported number of rooms due to changes in the rooms question between the 2007 and 2008 ACS.