plenty of nationwide surveys collect information at the household-level, only the american housing survey (ahs) focuses on the physical structure rather than the inhabitants.  when asked to pick their favorite public-use file, urban planners, real... [Read more...]

for over two decades now, researchers at cms have produced the definitive complex sample survey dataset of americans covered by medicare: the medicare current beneficiary survey (mcbs).  i bristle with righteous indignation when healthcare researc... [Read more...]

almost a century older than its own capital city, the decennial censo demografico no brasil (censo) forms the basis of every major survey product in the country.  the pesquisa nacional por amostra de domicilios (pnad), the pesquisa de orcamentos f... [Read more...]

with more than a decade of microdata aimed at gauging the political mood across european nations, the european social survey (ess) allows scientists like you to examine socio-demographic shifts among broad groups all the way down to pirate party (pirat... [Read more...]

if you've ever gotten stuck in traffic and started wondering what data might be available to better design the network of roads and rail, rev your engines for the national household travel survey (nhts).  dating back to the same decade as eisenhow... [Read more...]

whether or not you hit the snooze button, once every month your morning radio station probably announces the latest employment statistics for the nation.  in the united states, those headlines come from the bureau of labor statistics' current popu... [Read more...]

the united states administration on aging (aoa) spends about a billion dollars on community services and meals for elderly americans every year.  enacted as part of lyndon johnson's great society program, title iii of the older americans act funds... [Read more...]

for twenty years now, the centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) has been random-digit-dialing american households to ask parents which vaccinations their little tykes have received.  and since vaccination history might not be at the for... [Read more...]

the authoritative source for evaluating educational achievement across nations, the program(me) for international student assessment ranks the math, science, and reading skills of 15-year-olds in more than sixty countries.  coordinated by the orga... [Read more...]

american children of the nineties might have had pogs, beanie babies, m.c. hammer, but we lacked a reliable source for state-level survey estimates on health.  then in 2003, the maternal and child health bureau of the health services and resources... [Read more...]

on election days in the united states, the news media peppers its coverage with quick, dirty exit polls that allow them to make coarse statements like, "x% of demographic group y voted for candidate z."  the american national election studies are ... [Read more...]

ever since the dawn of the internet, the centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) has maintained a big data archive called the national vital statistics system (nvss).  the hardworking quants in hyattsville release two major annual microda... [Read more...]

the panel study of income dynamics (psid) is a one-trick pony.  better than anything else out there, this survey allows you to answer the question, "where are they now?"  after tracking the same nationally-representative cohort of americans (... [Read more...]

back in 1975, congress had it up to here with discriminatory lending practices and decided to require financial organizations originating home mortgages to report some basic operational statistics publicly.  the home mortgage disclosure act mandat... [Read more...]

each year ending in a two or a seven, census bureau employees stow away their eponymous decennial population count to focus on the economic census.  and when charged with gauging the health of the american economy, who better to survey than busine... [Read more...]

the national longitudinal survey of adolescent health (addhealth) is to the health and retirement study what teen people is to aarp magazine.  both surveys have followed a cohort of respondents for almost twenty years now, asking them health behav... [Read more...]

the national plan and provider enumeration system (nppes) contains information about every provider, insurance plan, and clearinghouse actively operating in the united states healthcare industry.  did i just see the ears of all the health workforce researchers in the room perk up?  it's freely downloadable, courtesy of the department of ... [Read more...]

the youth risk behavior surveillance system is the high school edition of the behavioral risk factor surveillance system (brfss), a scientific study of good kids who do bad things.  questions are mostly about sex, drugs, rock and roll, and populat... [Read more...]

the surveillance epidemiology and end results program is the aggregation of all cancer registry statistics in the united states.  created by congressional decree, seer has captured a nationally-representative quarter of american cancer incidence s... [Read more...]

the american time use survey collects information about how we spend our time.  it's a pretty simple setup: sampled individuals write down everything they do for a single twenty-four hour period, in ten minute intervals.  those diaries are a... [Read more...]