IPUMS provides demographic data for international COVID-19 research

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By Lara Cleveland

Since the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, researchers across the globe have been accessing census microdata from IPUMS International for COVID-19-related research. Scholars at universities from the U.S. to Nepal, Columbia to Belgium, Nigeria to China, and elsewhere have used IPUMS data to assess population dynamics contributing to COVID-19 vulnerability or spread. Divisions of the United Nations, World Bank, and other policy research institutes have similarly accessed IPUMS census data for COVID response and relief efforts.

IPUMS International harmonizes and disseminates household-level microdata census samples from more than 100 countries. Access to microdata is essential for rapid response in new areas because of its analytic flexibility. Researchers needing to build custom tables or construct variables for complex modeling suited to specific research questions can only do that with microdata. Of particular interest for research on population dynamics of COVID-19 is information about the age structure of the population, household living arrangements (household size, intergenerational co-residence, etc.), indicators of health vulnerability (age, work status, housing conditions, disability, etc.), healthcare workforce distribution, and migration patterns. IPUMS International census samples also include valuable subnational geographic identifiers at the first and second administrative levels, which are especially useful for highlighting particular regions or localities of vulnerability.

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Cite us! Seriously though…

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By Renae Rodgers and Kari Williams

Hi there IPUMS users! Let’s talk about citations. When using our datasets in your insightful, groundbreaking, interesting work, please cite us! 

Seriously though. 

Cite us. 

You wouldn’t steal a car, you wouldn’t rob a little old lady of her handbag, you wouldn’t base work on that of a colleague and not put their paper(s) in your reference section, right?!? Then don’t use IPUMS data and fail to mention it! 

To help you on your way, here are some answers to frequently asked questions:

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Overview of NHIS Data Collection, 1997-2018

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By Julia A. Rivera Drew, Kari C.W. Williams, and Natalie Del Ponte

The IPUMS NHIS project offers integrated versions of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data, the leading source of nationally representative information on the health of the U.S. population. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) collects the NHIS data through face-to-face interviews covering information about health, health insurance coverage, health care utilization, socioeconomic characteristics, and demographics of all household members. It is representative of the civilian, non-institutionalized U.S. population with annual samples ranging between 30,000-50,000 households and 75,000-100,000 people. NCHS has collected the NHIS annually since 1957 (with digital copies of the data available going back to 1963), making it the longest running annual survey of health in the world.

Periodically, aspects of data collection – such as the sampling frame, oversampled populations, or questionnaire content – change to better capture changes in the most pressing health concerns of Americans or changes in the demographic makeup of ­­Americans and where they reside within the U.S. Most of these changes are modest, reflecting changes in U.S. population composition and distribution detected in the most recent decennial census. However, 2019 heralded the largest change in NHIS data collection since 1997. In fall 2020, the NCHS will release the 2019 public use data files, the first data collected under the newly redesigned NHIS. The upcoming release of the 2019 data warrants a look back at how NCHS collected the NHIS data over the 1997-2018 period.

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New survey data from IPUMS PMA allows for exploration of factors in child nutrition status

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By Devon Kristiansen

Last month, when IPUMS PMA released data from nine countries, including the most recent person level and service delivery point level surveys on family planning, we also released data on a new topic for Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) – nutrition.  PMA conducted two survey rounds each in Burkina Faso and Kenya (2017 and 2018) in both in people’s homes (households) and where they received care and medical services (service delivery points).  Household surveys contained questions about the diet and nutritional status of children under 5 and women between 10 and 49 years, antenatal care and advice received by currently or recently pregnant women, and other household and demographic questions.  Service delivery points were surveyed for medical equipment and services relating to malnutrition and anthropometric monitoring.

A key factor for nutrition status of young children in the low and middle-income country (LMIC) context is incidence of diarrhea.  Diarrhea prevents the uptake of nutrients into the child’s body and causes dehydration. According to the World Health Organization1, diarrhea is the leading cause of malnutrition and second leading cause of death for children under 5 globally.  A well-established association in the nutrition literature is the presence of livestock on the homestead and incidence of diarrhea in young children, due to fecal contamination of water and food sources2, 3.

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IPUMS ATUS data now available for online analysis

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A Q&A about the new tool

By Daniel Backman, Senior Data Analyst, IPUMS

Earlier this year, the IPUMS Time Use team enabled analysis of American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data via an online data analysis tool. The Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) program was developed at UC Berkeley and allows users to analyze data online without a statistical package.

What data are available for analysis?

All years of ATUS data are available for online analysis. Users can choose to analyze a single year of ATUS data, or select among a number of multiple-year data files. Data from specific modules are also pooled together to facilitate analysis of ATUS module data and appropriate weights are set as defaults.

If you are familiar with ATUS data, it is important to note that the data in SDA are not in a hierarchical (or time sequence) format. As such, you are not able to create your own time use variables that summarize time use within a person through the SDA tool. However, a number of pre-fabricated time use variables are available (BLS and IPUMS summary variables as well as the ERS Eating and Health module time use variables).

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IPUMS Announces 2019 Research Award Recipients

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IPUMS is excited to announce the winners of its annual IPUMS Research Awards. These awards honor the best-published research and self-nominated graduate student papers from 2019 that used IPUMS data to advance or deepen our understanding of social and demographic processes.

IPUMS, developed by and housed at the University of Minnesota, is the world’s largest individual-level population database, providing harmonized data on people in the U.S. and around the world to researchers at no cost.

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