While summary national-level statistics from sources such as the World Bank are a useful tool, these national-level figures may conceal great heterogeneity across subnational units such as provinces and large urban areas. Such differences are displayed in the figures below, with data on the percentage of stunted children under age 5, nationally and by region within countries. For example, while 40 to 50 percent of Tanzanian children overall are stunted, the figures range from under 20 percent to 50 percent or more across Tanzanian regions.
Data Projects
IPUMS International Goes Around the World
IPUMS International has been living up to its name. In June and July, International staff traveled to four different conferences and braved the sweltering heat to talk about IPUMS with data users and producers, old and new. Here is a summary of their summer activities.
IPUMS DHS Now Releasing Data Multiple Times per Year
The Demographic and Health Survey program is continually collecting and releasing new data; at this writing, nineteen countries are collecting or processing data for standard DHS surveys. Researchers want the latest data for countries of interest, as soon as those data become available. To minimize the wait between the original DHS data release and the release of integrated data, IPUMS DHS is now releasing data multiple times a year.
Researchers Study How Context Affects Health with New IPUMS DHS Variables
Are you interested in how environmental or social contexts affect women’s and children’s health and behavior? IPUMS-DHS now makes it easy to investigate such questions. Using GPS coordinates, we’ve linked contextual variables drawn from many data sources directly to individual DHS respondent records. All context variables describe the features of a small geographic area (5-10 kilometers) surrounding each DHS cluster location.
By doing the technical stuff for you, we’ve freed you up to focus on your important substantive questions—like how climate change influences human health and survival. Our innovation eliminates the need for you to buy or learn geographic software. Even if you’re an ARCGIS whiz, the new IPUMS DHS’ linked data will make your research process simpler and faster.
What new data are available?
Where IPUMS Begins: The 1880 U.S. PUMS
The IPUMS journey to global domination dissemination is being celebrated this summer through an exhibit in the Seminar Room at the Minnesota Population Center.
Data Release: U.S. Household-level Full Count Data from 1790-1840
In collaboration with our partners at Ancestry.com, the Minnesota Population Center has released new historical census data through IPUMS-USA. Full count data for 1790-1840 is available via IPUMS-USA as household-level and county-level datasets* for each decennial census year and for the combined years, 1790-1840.
Wrangling International Census Tables
IPUMS-International currently disseminates census microdata from 82 countries around the world. It’s an impressive collection. But it still only covers about half the world’s countries. Under the TerraPop project, we are working to assemble a truly comprehensive global collection of population data.