Hansi Lo Wong, who reports for NPR, he's got a pretty nerdy beat, the census.

It's a kind of beat that will get you the American Statistical Association's Excellence in Statistical Reporting Award.

Yeah, Hansi's got that.

It's a kind of beat with a lot of hard- comprehend buzzwords and catchphrases. So I asked Hansi if you would translate one for me.

I keep seeing this phrase being tossed around or this acronym, NRFU. What does that mean? Nerfoo.

Nerfoo. Probably that's my favorite census acronym, and there are a lot of census acronyms.

I don't know what people may think it is, but I'll tell you it's non-response follow-up.

This is what the Census Bureau calls the door-knocking effort. When you see

workers out with their census bags, wearing face masks, and carrying smartphones to collect people's

information, this is all part of that. And this is the operation the Census Bureau relies on to make sure that every person living in the country is counted.

Because historically, there comes a point where only a certain percentage of the country has filled out a form on their own.

This Nerfu effort, it's launching nationally this week, and it's critical because people

who don't fill out the census form when they get it, they tend to be disproportionately poorer,

people of color. So for the next few weeks, census workers are going to go to their doors

again and again to see if they can extract the information they need.

The Census Bureau's policy is that by the third time, a Census Bureau can't reach someone

at their door and they haven't received a response yet, then that census worker will start

trying to interview neighbors, what's known as proxy, someone who can answer on behalf of

that household.

So they rely on neighbors, sometimes landlords, sometimes real estate agents, anyone who's

available who may know.

That's dedication.

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