# I am trying to estimate the number of people with livestock exposure in Minnesota.

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/i-am-trying-to-estimate-the-number-of-people-with-livestock-exposure-in-minnesota/1212>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [February 17, 2016, 10:19pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/i-am-trying-to-estimate-the-number-of-people-with-livestock-exposure-in-minnesota/1212 "2016-02-17T22:19:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sorle010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@sorle010](https://forum.ipums.org/u/sorle010)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 10:19pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/i-am-trying-to-estimate-the-number-of-people-with-livestock-exposure-in-minnesota/1212/1 "2016-02-17T22:19:00Z")

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I’m trying to determine the proportion of the Minnesota population that has exposure to livestock. I’ve received some input on possible data sources for determining livestock exposure, but from what I understand it provides an incomplete picture of overall proportion of the state that has livestock exposure. I’m still wondering though if this data could be used to get a good estimate of the number of people in the state that work with livestock or live on farms with livestock.

I’m a student at the University of Minnesota, and this is for a reserach project, so I’m also wondering if there is someone at MPC that I could meet with that could give me more guideance on answering this question, with the issues of data that provides an incomplete picture.

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**Author:** ![Tim\_Moreland](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f1d935/32.png) [@Tim\_Moreland](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Tim_Moreland)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/i-am-trying-to-estimate-the-number-of-people-with-livestock-exposure-in-minnesota/1212/2 "2016-02-23T19:12:00Z")

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The best Minnesota Population Center resource for this question is likely to be IPUMS-USA. IPUMS-USA provides [microdata](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/faq#ques5) that includes information about the industry in which a respondent works ([IND1990](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/IND1990#codes_section)) and identifies farm households ([FARM](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/FARM#description_section)). Specifically, IND1990 includes a category “011: Agricultural production, livestock” that should be of interest. IPUMS-USA allows you to identify geographies at the [PUMA](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variables/PUMA#description_section) level within Minnesota.

Hope this helps. If you would like to discuss further how to use IPUMS data in the context of this project, please email us at [ipums@umn.edu](mailto:ipums@umn.edu).