- Steve McClellan, Adweek

New research from Ipsos and Telemundo indicates a lack of familiarity with the details of the 2010 Census among U.S. Hispanics despite numerous efforts to publicize this year's population count to the fast-growing minority group.

The research is based on the first of a continuing series of surveys that Ipsos and Telemundo will jointly conduct under a new partnership to monitor Hispanics' opinions and attitudes on a variety of topics, the companies said.

The survey found that the proportion of those who have never heard of the Census is slightly higher among Hispanics than it is among the U.S. population at large (18 percent vs. 11 percent). And the proportion of those who have heard of it but know nothing more about it is also higher among Hispanics than it is among the total U.S. population (31 percent vs. 23 percent).  

The survey found that only half of Hispanics know either "a little" or "a lot" about the Census (52 percent), compared with two-thirds among the U.S. public at large (65 percent).

That said, most of the Hispanics polled indicated they believed the Census was important, with 84 percent agreeing that they and their families intend to be counted.

The Census is a hot button issue within the Hispanic community. Leaders in the community believe the larger the official count is for Hispanics the more influence the group will have in shaping both political and societal agendas.

The survey showed that a significant number of Hispanics (as well as the general population) worry that personal Census data will be shared with other governmental departments, even though it is not intended to be. Less than two-thirds of the Hispanics polled said they were confident personal Census data wouldn't be shared. About half of the general population expressed the same view.

The findings came from two polls conducted by Ipsos. The Ipsos-Telemundo poll was conducted from Nov. 19, 2009 to Jan. 10, 2010 with a nationally representative sample of 530 Hispanics interviewed by telephone. The findings for the broader U.S. population were based on an Ipsos poll conducted Jan. 7-10, 2010 of 1,000 respondents, also interviewed by phone.