GSU Library Research Guides: *Statistics and Data: Finding, Collecting, & Analyzing Data

Research Data Services (RDS) - helping you GET DATA READY!

The Library's RESEARCH DATA SERVICES (RDS) faculty members assist GSU students, faculty, and staff with data analysis tools & methods, data visualization, finding data & statistics, data collection, and data cleaning & management.

WAYS WE HELP:

VIDEO TUTORIALS and MICRO-CREDENTIAL BADGES -- data-skills trainings at your fingertips when convenient for you.
SESSIONS for CLASSES -- discipline-relevant data-skills trainings for both undergraduate and graduate students.
SESSIONS for RESEARCH TEAMS -- tailored trainings to support GSU faculty's research agendas.
ONE-ON-ONE HELP -- via Quick Data Help shifts offered throughout the semester, plus opportunities to schedule longer consults.

See this page for other data-skills resources and training opportunities at GSU and beyond!

GSS ~ U.S. Sociological and Attitudinal Trend Data, 1972 - 2021

The General Social Survey (GSS) "takes the pulse of America" on a vast number of topics, with national-level data collected beginning in 1972 to present. A great resource for any discipline!

To identify variables for the entire dataset and/or specific years:

Browse the entire GSS codebook
Use the GSS Data Explorer to conduct a variable search, explore key trends, or create custom tabulations. Note: a free account is needed to access some features.
Search/browse GSS variables with SDA 4.0 (Survey Documentation and Analysis, a tool for accessing codebooks and conducting data analysis online). For help using SDA 4.0, check out these SDA 4.0 video tutorials.

Options for Analyzing GSS Data:

Use SDA to analyze data online analysis with no need for downloading or special software:

Use the SDA 4.0 online analysis tool. For help using SDA 4.0, check out these SDA 4.0 video tutorials.
Check out the "Quick Tables" options, which allow you to produce simple tables using a pre-selected subset of variables.
Conduct simple bivariate analyses using the GSS Explorer Tabulations feature.

Download data for analysis in statistical software (e.g., SPSS, SAS, Stata, R):

Download GSS Data directly from the GSS website (available in SAS, SPSS, or Stata format). Single year and multi-year (panel) data available.
Download the entire GSS (available in SPSS or Stata format) via GSS Explorer.
Create customized data extracts containing just the variables you need (available in Excel, SPSS, SAS, Stata, DDI, and R format) via GSS Explorer.
Download the entire dataset, pre-constructed subsets, or create customized subsets of the data using SDA 4.0. For help using SDA 4.0, check out these SDA 4.0 video tutorials.

Education Datasets

Data & Statistics from the U.S. Department of Education
Data and Statistics from the U.S. Department of Education, including K-12, post-secondary education, and student outcome data.
The Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs (DAPIP)
The Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs (DAPIP): Contains data reported to the U.S. Department of Education directly by recognized accrediting agencies and state approval agencies.

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) This link opens in a new window
ICPSR is research science data on topics from social media, politics, to GIS & more. By providing this data ICPSR seeks to advance and expand social and behavioral research.
ICSPR LibGuide

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): Datasets and data-related tools from NCES, the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing education-related data in the U.S.
School Attendance Boundary Information System (SABINS)
The School Attendance Boundary Information System (SABINS) provides, free of charge, aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for school attendance areas, or school catchment areas, for selected areas in the United States for the 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years.
U.S. Department of Education’s Open Data Platform
Data.ed.gov is the U.S. Department of Education’s open data catalog.

Religion Datasets

Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA)
Over 1,000 freely available data files free of charge, as well as a "Measurement Wizard," to help researchers appropriately measure constructs and teaching tools.
The Berman Jewish DataBank
The Berman Jewish DataBank, a project of the Jewish Federations of America provides open access to hundreds of quantitative studies of North American and global Jewry.
Pew Research Center's Religion Datasets
Religion datasets from the Pew Research Center, including U.S. and international data. Most data are available for download in SPSS or excel format.
PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute)
PPRI is a "nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy." Data products include trends and reports, interactive maps, and a Data Vault, which can be searched or browsed. Note that data are exported as Word documents.

International Datasets

DataPortal.asia
Data from the Asia Open Data Partnership (AODP) organized by category and data catalog.
European Union's Open Data Portal
The EU's Open Data Portal, the official portal for EU data from 36 countries.
ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research)
This link opens in a new window
Seeks to advance and expand social and behavioral research by providing training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community as well a a data archive social science research.
IMF Data
Economic data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization of 190 countries.
OECD Data
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with data visualizations, tables, and raw data available for download.
Our World in Data
Over 3000 data charts and downloadable raw datasets on nearly 300 topics. All All visualizations, data, and code are completely open access.
UN Data
The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) has launched a new internet-based data service for the global user community. It brings UN statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single entry point from which users can now search and download a variety of statistical resources of the UN System.
U.S. Census Bureau International Programs
Access to raw data, including the International Database (IDB) and the World Population Clock, as well as data tables, tools, and apps.
World Bank Open Data
Freely available global development data from the World Bank.
World Values Survey
The World Values Survey (WVS) is a global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life. The WVS consists of nationally representative surveys conducted in almost 100 countries.

Business & Economic Datasets

Atlanta Research Data Center (ARDC)
Located at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Atlanta Research Data Center (ARDC) seeks to provide qualified researchers in Atlanta, and around the Southeast, with the opportunity to perform statistical analysis on non-public Census microdata.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) is an online database from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis includes hundreds of thousands of economic datasets from national, international, public, and private sources.
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Public Use Data Archive
Described as an “eclectic mix of public use economic, demographic, and enterprise data” from NBER-affiliated researchers. Over 200 datasets available, including historic data.
UNCTADstat
UNCTADstat from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is the UN agency aimed at promoting interests of developing states in world trade. UNCTADstat provides freely available data for download, data visualization and exploration tools, and country profiles.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Data related to employment and the economy in the U.S., including data tables, downloadable datasets, and calculators (e.g., inflation calculator).
U.S. Census Data Business and Economy Data
Data from the U.S. Census related to business and economy, including data on business dynamics and an economic indicator dashboard.
U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
The BEA produces data on the U.S., state, and local economies, including the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), data on consumer spending, employment, international investments, and inflation.
Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS)
WRDS describes itself as the "leading business intelligence, data analytics, and research platform" and offers a broad collection of data from a variety of global sources. Registration using GSU credentials and institutional approval are required prior to use. Atlanta Campus only.
World Bank Open Data
Freely available global development data from the World Bank.

Media Datasets

Dataset Download | Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center for The People & The Press offers free access (with registration) to its data archive. Datasets are currently available dating back to January 1997.

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) This link opens in a new window
ICPSR is research science data on topics from social media, politics, to GIS & more. By providing this data ICPSR seeks to advance and expand social and behavioral research.
ICSPR LibGuide

ProPublica Data Store
Provides access to the raw data behind ProPublica reporting. Some datasets are freely available, while others require fees to access.

Criminal Justice & Law Datasets

The Caselaw Access Project
The Caselaw Access Project (CAP) aims to make all published U.S. court decisions freely available. Via the Harvard Law School Library.
Georgia’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) Statistical Analysis Center (SAC)
The Statistical Analysis Center (SAC), part of Georgia’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) is responsible for coordinating the CJCC data collection and analysis activities. Data from SAC research activities are available by request. The Statistical Analysis Resources page provides additional external links to state and national crime and criminal justice data.
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) from ICPSR facilitates research in criminal justice and criminology through the preservation, enhancement, and sharing of computerized data resources.
Prison Policy Initiative Data.
The Prison Policy Initiative is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that uses research to advocate for prison reform. Their national and state data are available to download for free, and they also publish reports, data visualizations, and state profiles.
Supreme Court Database
The Supreme Court Database contains information on all U.S. Supreme Court cases between the 1791 and 2020 terms.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Data Collections
Search data collections from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the primary statistical agency of the Department of Justice. The mission of BJS is to “collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government.” Also includes online data analysis and visualization tools, such as the Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT).

More Dataset Repositories

Data Citation Index
Discover research data, including data studies, data sets from a wide range of international data repositories and connect them with the scientific literature to track data citation.
Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE)
DataONE is a collaboration among many partner organizations, and is funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) under a Cooperative Agreement.
Harvard Dataverse
The Harvard Dataverse Repository is a free data repository open to researchers across disciplines.
List of Data Repositories for "Open Data"
This is a list of repositories and databases for open data.
Re3Data.org
Registry of Research Data Repositories

General Places to Search for Dataset

ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) - Database of Datasets

Searching for datasets for research in the social and behavioral sciences? ICPSR is a great place to start!

The ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) database has over 10,500 datasets available spanning various social science disciplines and topics. The datasets in ICPSR are primarily quantitative, but it also includes some qualitative datasets.

ACCESSING ICPSR DATA: Check out this page for all the ins and outs of accessing ICPSR dat a and downloading datasets.

SEARCHING TIPS: You can keyword search for datasets, but browsing by topics, series, or thematic data collections is sometimes more efficient. For about 76% of their datasets, they also have variable-level/question-level search capabilities.

HELP RESOURCES: Check out some of ICPSR's YouTube videos for searching tips.

Demographic Datasets

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) This link opens in a new window
ICPSR is research science data on topics from social media, politics, to GIS & more. By providing this data ICPSR seeks to advance and expand social and behavioral research.
ICSPR LibGuide
AmericasBarometer This link opens in a new window
The only scientifically rigorous comparative survey of democratic values and behaviors. Covering all independent countries in North, Central, and South America, as well as a significant number of countries in the Caribbean. Note: Please accept the user agreement to access the database.

American Community Survey (ACS)
This initiative of the Census Bureau helps local officials, community leaders and businesses understand the changes taking place in their communities. It is the premier source for detailed information about the American people and workforce.
Atlanta Research Data Center (ARDC)
Located at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Atlanta Research Data Center (ARDC) seeks to provide qualified researchers in Atlanta, and around the Southeast, with the opportunity to perform statistical analysis on non-public Census microdata.
Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR)
DSDR provides resources to demographic data producers and users, including confidentiality and disclosure review, restricted data contract development and data dissemination, a searchable index of important demography and population study data, and a catalogue of publications using data indexed.
International Database (IDB) from the U.S. Census Bureau
Population estimates and projections for 227 countries and areas.
IPUMS
The MPC is one of the world's leading developers of demographic data resources. We provide population data to thousands of researchers, policymakers, teachers, and students. All MPC data are available free over the internet.
National Longitudinal Surveys
Sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) are a family of surveys dedicated to tracking the labor market and other life experiences of American men and women.
The seven NLS cohorts are: (1) National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97); (2) National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79); (3) NLSY79 Child and Young Adult; (4) Older Men; (5) Mature Women; (6) Young Men; and (7) Young Women
Social Explorer
Social Explorer provides access to current and historical census data (back to 1790), demographic information, and interactive demographic maps that can be queried and manipulated; users can also create maps and reports to illustrate, analyze, and understand demography and social change. A free account is needed to access some features.
UNdata
Data compiled by the United Nations (UN) statistical system and other international agencies.
UN Population Division
The UN Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs hosts data on world population, urbanization and migration, family planning, fertility, and family composition, and other topics.
UN Statistics Division Demographic and Social Statistics
The UN Statistics Division collects, compiles and disseminates official statistics on a wide range of social and demographic topics.
USA.gov Data and Statistics
U.S. demographic, economic and population data from a variety of governmental sources, including the Bureau of Justice, Bureau of Labor, and Internal Revenue Service.
U.S. Census Data via Data.census.gov
Data.census.gov is a data dissemination platform that allows users to search Census data by variables, and access and download data tables and maps.

Health and Science Datasets

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) This link opens in a new window
ICPSR is research science data on topics from social media, politics, to GIS & more. By providing this data ICPSR seeks to advance and expand social and behavioral research.
ICSPR LibGuide
Roper iPoll This link opens in a new window
Provides U.S. public opinion poll data through a full-text retrieval system organized at the question level
Polling the Nations This link opens in a new window
This critically acclaimed online database of public opinion polls contains full text of more than 700,000 questions and responses from more than 18,000 surveys and 1,700 polling organizations, conducted from 1986 through the present in the United States and more than 100 other countries around the world.

Atlanta Research Data Center (ARDC)
Located at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Atlanta Research Data Center (ARDC) seeks to provide qualified researchers in Atlanta, and around the Southeast, with the opportunity to perform statistical analysis on non-public Census microdata.
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is the nation's premier system of health-related telephone surveys that collect state data about U.S. residents regarding their health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions, and use of preventive services.
BioLINCC
The mission of BioLINCC is to facilitate access to, and maximize the scientific value of, the Biorepository and Data Repository and promote the availability and use of other NHLBI funded population-based biospecimen and data resources.
CDC National Center for Health Statistics
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is a rich source of data for researchers, teachers, and students who want to perform data analysis. This page compiles key sources of information found on the NCHS website for those who are interested in analysis of NCHS data as well as documentation and methodology of NCHS data systems.
CDC Wonder
CDC WONDER (Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research) is a platform that makes CDC, reference materials, reports and guidelines on health-related topics freely available online.
County Health Rankings
The annual County Health Rankings measure vital health factors, including high school graduation rates, obesity, smoking, unemployment, access to healthy foods, the quality of air and water, income, and teen births in nearly every county in America.
CMS Data
Public data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Data Citation Index
Discover research data, including data studies, data sets from a wide range of international data repositories and connect them with the scientific literature to track data citation.
Data at WHO
Raw datasets, data dashboards, visualization, and data collection and analysis tools are available on a variety of global health topics, including immunization, SDGs, and COVID 19.
Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program
Data on fertility, family planning, maternal and child health, gender, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and nutrition. The DHS Program is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Framingham Heart Study Data
The Framingham Heart Study (FHS) is a longitudinal epidemiologic study that has enrolled ~15,000 participants since 1948. Available data include clinical and biological data, genetics data, omics data, and biomarker data. Note: a proposal must be submitted via the FHS Research Application to access data via the FHS Repository. Costs are associated with data access via FHS Repository.
Subsets of the dataset are available for free via the database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP) and Biologic Specimen and Data Repository Information Coordinating Center (BioLINCC).
Health and Medical Care Archive
HMCA preserves and disseminates data collected by research projects funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans.
HealthData.gov
Health-related data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and state partners.
HealthyPeople.gov
Health People is a national effort to improve the health and well-being of people in the U.S. via 10-year goals and objectives. Data on each indicator are available via the Health People Data Search.
IPUMS Health Surveys: NHIS
U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) includes data on health, health care access, and health behaviors of the civilian, non-institutionalized U.S. population. Data files date from 1963 to present.
National Cancer Institute - SEER
A program of the National Cancer Institute, Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (SEER) is a source of information on cancer incidence and survival in the United States.
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)
A program of studies designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States.
National Health Interview Survey
The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is the principal source of information on the health of the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States and is one of the major data collection programs of the National Center for Health Statistics which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
National Immunization Surveys
National immunization surveys are conducted annually and used to obtain national, state, and selected local area estimates of vaccination coverage rates for U.S. children age 19-35 months and for U.S. adolescents age 13-17 years.
National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research (NICOR)
NICOR (National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research) contains databases about cardiovascular patients collected by hospitals across the UK. An application process and fees are required to use data.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Data and Statistics Gateway
Provides centralized access to NIOSH public-use research datasets.
Open Payments Data CMS
Open Payments is a national program that collects data on financial relationships between drug and medical device companies and physicians, physician assistants, advanced practice nurses and teaching hospitals.
Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS)
A CDC survey of maternal attitudes and experiences before, during, and shortly after pregnancy.
WHO Global Health Observatory Data Repository
The Global Health Observatory is WHO's gateway to health-related statistics for more than 1000 indicators for its 194 Member States.
WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System)
CDC's interactive, online database that provides fatal and nonfatal injury, violent death, and cost of injury data from a variety of trusted sources.
Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS)
The YRBSS includes national, state, territorial, tribal government, and local school-based surveys of representative samples of 9th through 12th grade students.