---
title: "Methodology — USA"
description: "How USA data is produced. Methodology follows the underlying signal, so only what applies in USA is listed."
slug: "/docs/datasets/usa/methodology"
last_updated: "2026-08-31"
tags: ["methodology", "overview", "usa"]
country: "USA"
signals: ["gps"]
entry_count: 3
entry_ids: ["home-and-work", "extrapolation", "privacy-approach"]
---


# Methodology — USA

How USA data is produced: how visits are detected, how observations are scaled to population, and how privacy is enforced. Methodology follows the underlying signal, so what applies in USA is determined by its supply. Methodology for other signals is not listed here because it does not apply.

## Signal

- [GPS](/docs/datasets/usa/supply/gps-usa.md) — gps signal.


## Foundations

- [Home & work inference](/docs/datasets/usa/methodology/home-and-work.md) — Estimating the likely home and work areas of visitor groups, always at area level and never an address, to enable resident / worker / visitor breakdowns, trade areas, and visitor-only scoping for Visit Length.
- [Extrapolation](/docs/datasets/usa/methodology/extrapolation.md) — Scaling the observed sample of devices up to population-level visit estimates, so counts reflect real-world volume rather than sample size.
- [Privacy approach](/docs/datasets/usa/methodology/privacy-approach.md) — Pine59 products are built for statistical use only, and no output can be linked to an individual person.


Per-model methodology (versions, model-specific algorithms, validation against ground truth) lives with each [metric model](/docs/datasets/usa/metric-models.md).