LibGuides: PBHL-E711 Applied Epidemiology Methods I: Datasets

Repositories with Public Health Datasets

These are all repositories with many datasets. Not all of the datasets will be health-related.

Due to policy changes at the federal level, some of these databases may be offline either temporarily or permanently. To view a list of alternative links to federal data sources, see this spreadsheet (requires IU login).

AHRQ Data
Data and research from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Canadian Surveys, Datasets, and Statistics
Contains surveys and datasets collected by Canadian government agencies
CDC Data Catalog
Large data catalog of CDC data. See video guides to learn how to use the data.
Child & Family Data Archive
CFData hosts datasets about young children, their families and communities, and the programs that serve them.
Freebird: Bank of Injury and Emergency Research Data
UK database that shares data from clinical trials of injury and other emergency conditions. Must register to download datasets.
Gun Violence Archive
The Gun Violence Archive is an online archive of gun violence incidents collected from over 7,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources daily in an effort to provide near-real time data about the results of gun violence. GVA is an independent data collection and research group with no affiliation with any advocacy organization.
Guttmacher Institute
Sexual and reproductive health data
Health & Medical Care Archive (ICPSR)
This is a subset of ICPSR, which includes health and medical datasets.
Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP)
The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) includes the largest collection of longitudinal hospital care data in the United States.
HealthData.gov
Data from HHS agencies
ICPSR
International repository of social science data.
more...less...
An international consortium of about 700 academic institutions and research organizations, ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community.

ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 500,000 files of research in the social sciences. It hosts 16 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
Indiana Data Hub
Data maintained by the Indiana state government. Most of the datasets are health-related.
NIH Dataset Catalog
Freely available catalog of biomedical datasets available from various repositories
NYC Open Data
Free public data published by New York City agencies.
Open Data Flint
Central repository for Flint-based data gathered from academic institutions, local organizations, and federal agencies
re3data.org Registry of Research Data Repositories
global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines.
Resource Center for Minority Data
Subset of ICPSR data on racial and ethnic minorities.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive
SAMHSA public use data sets with online analysis tools
UN Global Database on Violence Against Women
Provide easy access to comprehensive and up-to-date information on measures undertaken by Governments to address all forms of violence against women. Includes information on data, laws, policies, budgets, services, prevention, and monitoring.
WHO Data Collections
The World Health Organization manages and maintains a wide range of data collections related to global health and well-being as mandated by our Member States.

National Health Surveys & Studies

Featured in the Big Data for Epidemiology book

Below are links to the surveys and the book chapter about each survey, which includes details on how to analyze the public-use data.

National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)
The NHIS contains data on trends in the health status and health care utilization among the US population.
See Big Data for Epidemiology for information on data collection, design features, strengths and limitations, and practical tips for statistical analysis using SAS.
Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
The MEPS estimates and monitors national trends in health care use, medical costs and health insurance coverage.
See Big Data for Epidemiology for information on data collection, design features, strengths and limitations, and practical tips for statistical analysis using SAS.
Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS)
HINTS monitors national trends in health communication, information technology use, and knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards cancer prevention and care.
See Big Data for Epidemiology for information on data collection, design features, strengths and limitations, and practical tips for statistical analysis using SAS.
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
The BRFSS collects data on health behaviors, physical activity, diet, hypertension and preventive safety measures among US adults.
See Big Data for Epidemiology for information on data collection, design features, strengths and limitations, and practical tips for statistical analysis using SAS.
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)
NHANES monitors and explores trends in the health status and nutritional status among all individuals in the United States.
See Big Data for Epidemiology for information on data collection, design features, strengths and limitations, and practical tips for statistical analysis using SAS.

Other Health Surveys & Studies

*Note that these have all been used in previous E711 projects.

COVID-19 Case Surveillance Public Use Data with Geography
This case surveillance public use dataset has 19 elements for all COVID-19 cases shared with CDC and includes demographics, geography (county and state of residence), any exposure history, disease severity indicators and outcomes, and presence of any underlying medical conditions and risk behaviors.
Current Population Survey
The Current Population Survey (CPS), sponsored jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is the primary source of labor force statistics for the U.S. population.
Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Program
The ECLS program includes four longitudinal studies that examine child development, school readiness, and early school experiences. There are some health data.
EPA Outdoor Air Quality Data
Air quality data collected at outdoor monitors across the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U. S. Virgin Islands. The data comes primarily from the AQS (Air Quality System) database.
Health and Retirement Study
Longitudinal panel study with interview data on the challenges and opportunities of aging.
Midlife in the United States (MIDUS)
The primary objective of MIDMAC is to identify the major biomedical, psychological, and social factors that permit some people to achieve good health, psychological well-being, and social responsibility during their adult years. To do this, MIDMAC collected a series of data to establish an empirical basis for documenting what happens in the middle years and to identify the factors that determine the course of midlife development.
National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS)
NEISS collects data on consumer product-related injuries occurring in the United States. CPSC uses these data to produce nationwide estimates of product-related injuries.
National Survey of Children’s Health
The NSCH examines the physical and emotional health of children ages 0-17 years of age. Special emphasis is placed on factors related to the well-being of children. These factors include access to - and quality of - health care, family interactions, parental health, neighborhood characteristics, as well as school and after-school experiences.
National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG)
The NSFG gathers information on pregnancy and births, marriage and cohabitation, infertility, use of contraception, family life, and general and reproductive health. The survey sample is designed to produce national data, not estimates for individual states.
Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study
The PATH study is national longitudinal study of tobacco use and how it affects the health of people in the United States.
SEER Cancer Data
Includes cancer incidence and population data associated by age, sex, race, year of diagnosis, and geographic areas (including SEER registry and county).
There are two access levels -- one requires an email address and registration only, and the other requires that users have eRA Commons or HHS accounts.
USDA Food Security in the US
Supplement of the Current Population Survey
Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS)
The YRBSS is a set of surveys that track behaviors that can lead to poor health in students grades 9 through 12.

Institutional Repositories of Data

This is a very brief list of institutional data repositories to give you an idea of the wide variety of data available from academic institutions.

IUI DataWorks
IUI DataWorks is a repository for preserving and sharing IUPUI digital research data. It is a place to make research data available for other researchers to find and use. IUPUIDataWorks is also a tool enabling researchers to meet funding agency requirements for data preservation and sharing.
Odum Institute Data Archive
The Odum Institute data holdings include national and international economic, electoral, demographic, financial, health, public opinion and other types of data to meet a variety of research and teaching needs. Data from studies conducted by UNC-Chapel Hill faculty and research groups are also available.
PURR: Purdue University Research Repository
The Purdue University Research Repository (PURR) provides an online, collaborative working space and data-sharing platform to support the data management needs of Purdue researchers and their collaborators.

Academic & Non-Profit Organizations

Minnesota Population Center
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.
Data is Plural
A weekly newsletter of useful/curious datasets. The structured archive is available in a Google Sheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wZhPLMCHKJvwOkP4juclhjFgqIY8fQFMemwKL2c64vk/edit#gid=0.

Advanced Google/Web Searching

Google Dataset Search
Discover datasets hosted in thousands of repositories across the Web using Google's dataset search.

Try these tips to improve your Google search:

Use quotes around words or phrases to ensure that those words in the search results
- "vaccine hesitancy"
Site sources narrow results to a particular website or domain
- Site:gov
- Site:cdc.gov
File type searches narrow results to a particular file type
- filetype:csv
- See list of filetypes at this Wikipedia page
Connect synonyms or related terms with OR (note that Google assumes there is an AND between every word unless you use OR)
- data OR dataset
- teenagers OR adolescents
- cigarettes OR tobacco