Research Guides: Social Welfare Policies and Services I: SSW 5005: Data and Statistics

Social and Demographic Data

data.census.gov This link opens in a new window
data.census.gov provides data from the U.S. Census Bureau including the 2018 American Community Survey, 2017 Economic Census, 2020 Census and more.
Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
Social Explorer provides access to demographic information and interactive data maps about the United States.
PolicyMap This link opens in a new window
Policy Map is a web-based Geographic Information System that provides a simple mechanism for visualizing data. Available data includes demographics, home sale statistics, health data, mortgage trends, school performance scores and labor data like unemployment, crime statistics and city crime rates.
PolicyMap is an online data and mapping application that provides access to over 10,000 indicators related to demographics, housing, income, crime, mortgages, health, jobs, and more. Data is available at many common geographic entities (address, block group, census tract, zip code, county, city, state, metro area) as well as unique geographies such as school districts and political boundaries. Data is accessible in interactive maps, tables, charts, and reports and also may be downloaded.
Some PolicyMap datasets are from free government sources (including U.S. Census data), while other datasets are from proprietary sources, including detailed home sales statistics, school district performance from GreatSchools, locations of grocery stores and non-profit organizations, and Nielsen estimates and projections for demographic indicators.

Data by Subject and Fast Facts

Visit the website of the agency (Federal, state or loca) that regulates or is responsible for the topic or is required to collect data, evaluate or report. Browse for or search for "fast stats" sites.

Find data from organizations and research centers and think tanks that are advocates for the issue or problem or study them.

Health Statistics & Data
Temple Univ. Library Research Guide
Dataset and Data Repositories: Data by Subjects
Temple Univ. Library Research Guide
National Center for Health Statistics
Center for Disease Control and Prevention Faststats A to Z (health topics)
National Center for Education Statistics Fast Facts

Finding Data Tools and Tips

Finding data tools

Library catalogs, research guides and databases

Library Search (catalog)
Library Search is the catalog to all library materials, including data available in print, CD-ROM, and online through subscribed databases. Try different methods: (1) add "statistics OR data" to your keywords; (2) in advanced search enter statistics or data as a subject or as form/genre; (3) use a Library of Congress Subject Heading as subject and add a word for topic and look for dataset filter; (4) add topic as title or keyword and filter by form/genre. For a state, select subject and enter a search string with the state name. For example: "Crime -- Pennsylvania-- Periodicals " or "criminal statistics -- Pennsylvania-- Periodicals"

Search for relevant Temple Library Research Guides or at LibGuides Community. Guides for a specific topic or issue or survey can also be searched using Google or other search engine and adding "Login to Libapps" OR "libguide" to the search term and optionally limiting site to .edu.
Use Temple Libraries' A to Z list of databases to search for data related databases.

Data Citation Index This link opens in a new window
Data Citation Index searches over 380 data repositories worldwide and gives a description of the study or experiment, links to data and software and other studies citing the data.

Searching is by keywords. The subject descriptor appears to have a small number of biological and medical terms.

How to search on the Web of Science and save results and create alerts.

Training portal, training video library, and Data Citation Index video

Statistical Abstract of the United States This link opens in a new window
Statistical Abstract of the United States (1878-2012)
Statistical Abstract of the United States provides a collection of statistics on the social, political and economic conditions of the United States.

The first link is to the 2022 ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the U.S. 2022 Online Edition.

Statista This link opens in a new window
Statista provides access to quantitative facts by market sector, encompassing agriculture, finance, and politics, and others. Statista is a statistics portal that integrates thousands of diverse topics of data and facts from a wide range of sources onto a single platform. Sources of information include market research, trade publications, scientific journals, and government databases.
Sage Data (formerly Data-Planet) This link opens in a new window
Sage Data (formerly Data Planet) provides access to statistical data produced by U.S. Federal agencies, States, private organizations, and intergovernmental organizations. It contains charts, maps, views, rankings, time series and tables.
Sage Research Methods Online This link opens in a new window
This database may have training data, such as the GSS data to be used with SPSS. There are handbooks to understand survey methodology and statistics.

Search engines

Google can be used to search by adding "statistics" "database" or "data set" or data to the search terms. Other useful search engine websites include:

USA.gov
Google Dataset Search
Using a simple keyword search, users can discover datasets hosted in thousands of repositories across the Web as well as some subscription-based databases. It is similar to Web of Science Data Citation Index, but is not human indexed, has many duplicates, less refined search filters, and lacks studies citing the data,
Open Data - Open Government
Harvard Think Thank Search
Think Tank Search is a customized Google Search with over 1300 URLs of US and international websites. The sites included are institutions that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity. These sites are affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, and non-governmental organizations.

Data Paper and Data Journals

"A data paper is a peer reviewed document describing a dataset, published in a peer reviewed journal." Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Where to find data papers and journals

Edinburgh University wiki page listing data journals
GBIF website. GBIF—the Global Biodiversity Information Facility—is an international network and data infrastructure funded by the world's governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth.
The 2014 blog post by Katherine Akers lists data journals
Walters, William H.. 2020. “Data Journals: Incentivizing Data Access and Documentation Within the Scholarly Communication System”. Insights 33 (1): 18. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.510

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