The article explains population projection in Harmoni, detailing how weights adjust sample proportions and projection scales samples to population levels. It covers creating and editing projection items, defining projections by overall, time, market, or both, and handling nulls or zeros. It also discusses updating sources, auto-filling new time items, revising projections when new elements appear, exporting/importing projection templates, and validation warnings before publishing.
Changes to the population projection can impact comparability and trends.
In this article
- Weights and Projection
- Create a New Projection Item
- Finding Your Way Around the Projection Editor
- Define Projection Item
- Updating Sources
- Exporting and Importing Projection Template
- Projection Item Validation
1. Weights and Projection
Weights are used to adjust population proportions of different variables (e.g., demographics – usually age, gender, and region). For example, when numbers of young males are under-sampled, they might get weighted up (e.g., from 15% to 18%). The total weighted sample remains the same, but the proportions of age, gender, and age/gender combinations, etc., adjust to reflect the actual population of that country better.
Projection scales the sample (i.e., the weighted sample) up to a given population level. For example, a sample size of a thousand respondents can be projected up to one million.
Each respondent has a weighting factor (e.g., it might be 1.1) and a projection factor (e.g., 1000). These two are combined into one factor when calculating the Projection (i.e., 1.1 x 1000). As you create an analysis the projection factor is applied to each respondent. Any combinations of respondents are then the summation of these projected numbers.
The counts behind a table change, but the percentages remain consistent. This is because the whole sample is multiplied up.
In this example, you can see an unprojected table versus a projected table. The weighted counts (123) display the projected counts in the right-hand table. Note that the percentages and unweighted counts remain the same in both tables.
You can remove the projection by clicking the Projection label in the interactive title and clicking the radio button to remove it.
2. Create a New Projection Item
In Harmoni, Projections can only be created by the Project Owner.
To create a new projection item:
- Select the desired position in the project tree
- Choose new projection from the design menu
- Name the new projection item and press Enter
- The Projection Editor opens where you can define the projection.
The name that you choose, displays in the analysis. e.g., Country Projection.
After you have created the projection, you can edit it by highlighting the projection item in the project tree and clicking Library/Editor from the action pane. This opens the Projection Editor.
You can create multiple projection items in your project. Each project can have one projection item set as the default projection. This means that whenever you create an analysis, the projection set as the default is applied.
To set a default projection, select the projection item and choose set default under projection from the design menu. The default projection displays with a blue dot.
3. Finding Your Way Around the Projection Editor
There three key areas in the projection editor pane: Market, Time and Projection.
a. Market
In the top panel, you can drag and drop the items you want your population based on; this would usually be country or market. You only need to do this when you have more than one country in your project, and population projection figures are different.
To add markets, you need to select the edit option and then drag the relevant axis i.e., Country. Note that you can only have one axis selected as the market.
The market axis used for projection must be single
response and include all respondents.
b. Time
Any items flagged as a date type, are automatically identified as time axes and pulled into this pane. You can also choose to edit and drag and drop time axes as needed.
c. Projection
This is the area where you can enter population projection figures. There are several ways to define a projection item, this will depend on the number of countries in your project, population changes across time periods and the combination of both.
Zero counts for any elements contributing to the projection axis/item (market or time) will not be projected regardless of the projection number assigned to it.
d. Cancel and Clear
The cancel and clear options are at the bottom of the projection editor pane.
- Cancel doesn't save any of your actions. It shows the previously saved state.
- Clear cleans all of the fields. You can use this option if you want to replace all the population figures you have entered so far. Clear will not automatically save; if you close the editor before saving, the population figures show as they were.
4. Define Projection Item
There are several ways to define a projection item.
a. Overall Projection
This option is useful when you only have one market in your project and the population figures are consistent across all time periods.
To do this, you need to enter the total projection population figure under the Projection Total field. Selecting the option Auto-Fill time populates the relevant time axes in the project.
For example, let's say the Total Population of Country A is 2.5 million people. The sample in the survey includes respondents aged 12 to 59 years old, which would be the equivalent of 2 million people. Entering this population projection number into the Projection Total field applies this factor when creating an analysis that is Country Population = 2,000,000.
b. Projection by Time
As population figures change, you may need to update the relevant time periods.
For example, for Country A, there were 15 million people between 15 and 59 years old in 2020. The population increased to 15,250,000 in 2021 and 15,350,000 in 2022. To cater to this adjustment, you need to update all relevant time axes.
To do this, you need to expand each time axis and enter the new population figure. Having the option Auto-Fill time ticked auto-populates all elements from the point where you enter the new factor.
At the same time, you also need to adjust the Projection Total; this is usually the weighted average of both population figures (i.e., 15.1).
c. Projection by Market
This option is useful when you have more than one market in your project and you want the same population projection for each country to be applied regardless of the time.
For example, let's say the Total Population of Country A is 15 million people and the Total Population for Country B is 30 million. The sample in the survey includes respondents aged 12 to 59 years old, which would be the equivalent of 10 million people for Country A and 20 million people for Country B.
In the projection editor, after adding the relevant market axis, you can enter the projection factors for each country. You need to expand the market axis and then enter the population figures.
Note the Projection Total is automatically calculated, in this case, the summation of all country population figures (30 million).
d. Projection by Market by Time
This option is useful when you have more than one market in your project and there are population changes across time periods.
For example, for Country A, there were 15 million people between 15 and 59 years old in 2020. The population increased to 15,250,000 in 2021 and 15,350,000 in 2022. For Country B, there were 40 million people aged between 15 and 19 years in 2020, 41 million in 2021 and 42 million in 2022.
To cater to this adjustment, you need to update all relevant time axes for each market.
To do this, you need to expand each time axis and enter the new population figure. Having the option Auto-Fill time ticked auto-populates all elements from the point where you enter the new factor.
At the same time, you also need to adjust the Country Projection value; this is usually the weighted average of both population figures (i.e., 15,200,000 and 41,000,000).
Note the Projection Total is automatically calculated, in this case, the summation of all country projection values (56.2 million).
e. Inputting Nulls or Zeros
Nulls can be input as projection values and those cells will not be projected. This means that the projection factor will be set to 1.
Zero projection values are applied as zeros.
5. Updating Sources
When adding and/or overwriting sources, Harmoni identifies if there are any items related to projection calculations and notifies the user if there is any action required, i.e., adding population projections.
a. New Time Items Auto-filled
Harmoni automatically updates the population projection in source time axes during updates. Harmoni notifies you when new items have been auto-filled.
Auto-filling takes place when new elements in the source data are identified in the time axes used for projection. By default, Harmoni uses the projection figure used in the last element.
In this example project, Country A has the projection figure for February 2045 as 25 million. After adding the March 2045 data, the new element is identified, and the associated projection is auto-filled.
b. Manually Update New Items in Projection Axes
After adding a new element, you will see a pop-up window that says: New Items found in Projection Axes - Please Revise. In this case, the projection items turn red and the market and/or time definitions need to be manually updated by the Project Owner.
This will usually be the case when:
- Newly constructed elements are identified in the time axes
- New elements are added to the Market axis
For example, after adding March 2045 data into the project, the YTD axis needs to be updated to include the element Mar-2045 YTD. After creating this new element, Harmoni identifies it and in the project tree, the related projection item turns red. For Countries A, B, and C, the projection for Mar-2045 YTD needs to be defined. Once saved, the projection item in the project tree is no longer red.
When a new country is added to a project it will be identified as a new element in the Country axis and the related projection item turns red. Harmoni automatically adds the new county label and time periods to the projection editor. Once the projection values are entered for the new country, the projection item is no longer red.
- Open the projection editor by selecting the projection label in the tree, e.g., Country Projection, and clicking library/editor.
- Fill in the projection for the new market in the projection editor
- Press save
- The Country Projection label changes from red to black.
6. Export and Import the Projection Template
As the project owner, you have the ability to export and import the projection template in order to populate/update the projection values.
Open the projection editor by selecting the projection label in the tree, and clicking library/editor. At the bottom of the projection editor, you can find the export and import options. This functionality supports Excel files with extension xls and xlsx.
7. Projection Item Validation
Harmoni automatically checks projection items and will give a warning if it identifies any issues with the definitions.
When in Edit mode
Harmoni displays a warning message alerting the project owner to check the definitions.
Before Publishing
Harmoni displays a warning message alerting the project owner before the project is published. As the project owner, you can still publish, but it is best to make sure your projection definitions are valid before proceeding.
Where to from here?
Learn more about Harmoni Project Design.