IPUMS – Use It for Good

Celebrating 30 Years: Three Decades of IPUMS Data

July 18, 2024July 17, 2024 by mpcblog

By Diana L. Magnuson; Curator and Historian, ISRDI

"Celebrating 30 years: three decades of IPUMS data" display case with promotional materials, swag items, and historical IPUMS items — “Celebrating 30 years: three decades of IPUMS data” display case at ISRDI Headquarters

“Celebrating 30 Years: Three Decades of IPUMS Data,” the current exhibit at ISRDI Headquarters, highlights thirty years of data innovation at the University of Minnesota. In the late 1980s, the Social History Research Laboratory at the University of Minnesota’s History Department proposed “the creation of a single integrated microdata series composed of public use samples for every year … with the exception of the 1890 census, which was destroyed by fire.” The primary aim was to make the U.S. census microdata “as compatible over time as possible while losing little, if any, of the detail in the original datasets.” (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: A Prospectus).

Steven Ruggles remembers the moment he went into the History Department lounge on the sixth floor of the Social Science Tower and said, “IPUMS! Integrated Public Use Microdata Series! Isn’t that a great idea?” The response from the graduate research assistants was not enthusiastic. “What a terrible name! You can’t call it that!” According to Ruggles, “It was universal; everyone thought it was just a horrible name … It wasn’t a bad idea to propose, just a terrible thing to call it.” After a brief quandary over pronunciation (Ī-pŭms or Ĭ-pŭms), the name has stuck and is now synonymous with social research, data innovation, and free access. And for the record, we don’t care how you pronounce it, just as long as you cite it!

New IPUMS DHS Climate Change and Health Research Hub

April 23, 2024April 23, 2024 by mpcblog

By Miriam King, Senior Research Scientist

Men wading through flood waters In October 2023, the World Health Organization stated, “3.6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change. Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress alone.”

The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are an ideal source for research on the health effects of climate change. Since the 1980s, the DHS has collected a broad range of nationally representative health data from over 90 countries. With supplemental funding from NICHD, harmonized DHS data from IPUMS (dhs.ipums.org) is now doing more to support research on the effects of climate change on health. We are adding new contextual variables; we are integrating data from Malaria Indicator Surveys (MIS); and we are offering guidance through the new Climate Change and Health Research Hub.

Sound research on climate change and health requires combining social science and health data with natural science data. While social scientists and public health researchers have considerable experience analyzing health survey data, few have been trained in simultaneously employing data on environmental factors. This knowledge gap is addressed by the Climate Change and Health Research Hub, under the leadership of Dr. Kathryn Grace and Senior Data Analyst Finn Roberts.

Bivariate Proportional Symbol Maps, Part 1: An Introduction

February 22, 2024February 7, 2024 by mpcblog

By Jonathan Schroeder, IPUMS Research Scientist, NHGIS Project Manager

A powerful, underused mapping technique

The world could use a lot more bivariate proportional symbol maps. These maps pair two basic visual variables—size and (usually) color—to symbolize two characteristics of mapped features. When designed well, they convey multiple key dimensions of a population all at once: size and composition as well as spatial distribution and density.

A map of the share of population under age 18 in the Miami area in 2020. There is one colored circle for each census tract. There are five colors ranging from dark blue (representing less than 15% under age 18) to light green (representing 20 to 25% under age 18) to brown (representing 30% or more). The circle sizes correspond to tract populations. Most circles have similar sizes, representing around 1,000 to 10,000 people. The circles cluster together forming groups where there are more tracts and more people. The circles in central Miami and along the coast are bluer than elsewhere. — A bivariate proportional symbol map.
Click map for larger version.

Unfortunately, standard mapping software hasn’t made it easy to create good versions of these maps, and most introductions to statistical mapping stick to simpler strategies. As a result, bivariate proportional symbols aren’t used very often. With few examples and little guidance to go on, it’s understandable that mapmakers don’t realize how often they’re a viable, well-suited option.

This two-part blog series aims to spark more interest by providing a “few examples” (Part 1) and a “little guidance” (Part 2).

Picking up where I left off

In a previous blog post, I shared an example of a bivariate proportional symbol map and described some of the technique’s advantages. But that post focuses on a mapping resource (census centers of population) rather than on mapping techniques. Most of the examples in the post are also simply “proportional symbol maps,” without the more intriguing “bivariate” part.

To close that post, I suggested “a tantalizing next step” would be to use bivariate proportional symbols with small-area data (for census tracts or block groups), and I shared a few technical notes and design tips without much detail. I later expanded on those ideas in a conference talk, sharing some new examples with small-area data and going a little deeper with design tips.

In these new posts, I’m sharing and building on the examples and tips from the conference talk.

IPUMS Announces 2022 Research Award Recipients

May 5, 2023April 17, 2023 by mpcblog

We are excited to announce the winners of our annual IPUMS Research Awards competition. These awards honor outstanding published research and graduate student papers from 2022 that use IPUMS data to advance or deepen our understanding of social and demographic processes.

The 2022 competition awarded prizes for the best published and best graduate student research in eight categories:

IPUMS USA, providing data from the U.S. decennial censuses, the American Community Survey, and includes full count data, from 1850 to the present.
IPUMS CPS, providing data from the monthly U.S. labor force survey, the Current Population Survey (CPS), from 1962 to the present.
IPUMS International, providing harmonized data contributed by more than 100 international statistical office partners for over 500 censuses and surveys from around the world for 1960 forward as well as full count historical (NAPP) data.
IPUMS Health Surveys, which makes available the U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).
IPUMS Spatial, covering IPUMS NHGIS, IPUMS IHGIS, and IPUMS Terra. NHGIS includes GIS boundary files from 1790 to the present; IHGIS provides data tables from population and housing censuses as well as agricultural censuses from around the world; Terra provides data on population and the environment from 1960 to the present.
IPUMS Global Health, providing harmonized data from the Demographic and Health Surveys and the Performance Monitoring and Accountability surveys, for low and middle-income countries from the 1980s to the present.
IPUMS Time Use, providing time diary data from the U.S. and around the world from 1965 to the present.
IPUMS Excellence in Research, this award is an opportunity to highlight and reward outstanding work using any of the IPUMS data collections by authors who are underrepresented in social science research.

The awards committee reviewed hundreds of submissions; from these, we selected the 2022 winners.

IPUMS FAQ: What are Virtual Office Hours?

March 14, 2023March 14, 2023 by mpcblog

by Amy Grotsun and Kari Williams

While scrolling through an IPUMS email or checking up on the latest IPUMS tweets you may have read about IPUMS Virtual Office Hours. You also probably wondered, “What even are virtual office hours?” Today we are here to answer that question.

In the wake of canceled conferences during spring of 2020, IPUMS wanted to create an opportunity to connect with data users about questions they might have when using the data–the kind of thing you might pop by the exhibit hall booth to ask. We found that we connected with virtual conference attendees as expected, but many other IPUMS data users as well. As in-person conferences resume, we will continue to host virtual office hours quarterly so we can continue connecting with a broad range of IPUMS users.

IPUMS at ICFP2022

November 30, 2022 by mpcblog

by Devon Kristiansen

IPUMS was proud to partake in the International Conference on Family Planning in Pattaya City, Thailand. We participated by hosting a pre-conference workshop, sponsoring the conference, staffing an exhibit both, and presenting research as part of the conference program. The conference, held between November 14th and 17th, 2022, had 3,500 in-person attendees, with many virtual participants, as well.

Research staff representing IPUMS PMA, IPUMS DHS, IPUMS MICS, and IPUMS International conducted a 2-hour pre-conference workshop, providing participants with an overview of each of the IPUMS data collections featuring international data as well as a website and data analysis demonstration.

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Impacted the 2020 ACS 1-year PUMS Data

April 1, 2022March 31, 2022 by mpcblog

By Danika Brockman and Megan Schouweiler

One of the highlights of the past IPUMS USA release was the 2020 ACS 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) file. Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on 2020 ACS data collection and data quality, the Census Bureau did not release the standard PUMS data. Instead, they released the 2020 ACS 1-year data with experimental weights designed to account for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on data quality. In this blog post, we discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the 2020 ACS and the development of the experimental weights, and we provide some recommendations for using the 2020 ACS 1-year PUMS file.

Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Data Collection and Data Quality and the Development of the Experimental Weights

The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted data collection for the 2020 ACS. All methods of data collection were either shut down or significantly reduced from March 2020 through the end of the year. Data collection for group quarters was particularly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic; in-person visits to group quarter facilities were suspended or greatly reduced from March 2020 through the end of the year, and telephone interviews were not conducted due to logistical constraints. Beyond the impacts to data collection methods, the 2020 ACS had significant variability across the 2020 data collection year in response rates for both housing units and group quarters, and had the lowest overall response rate in the history of the ACS¹.