Search results

The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS) is a two-wave study of adults and children in Los Angeles County and of the neighborhoods in which they live. The first wave (L.A.FANS-1), which was fielded between April 2000 and January 2002, interviewed adults and children living in 3,085 households in a stratified probability sample of 65 neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles County. The samples of neighborhoods and individuals were representative of neighborhoods and residents of Los Angeles County. Poorer neighborhoods and households with children were oversampled. In Wave 2 of L.A.FANS (L.A.FANS-2), Wave 1 respondents living in Los Angeles County were reinterviewed and updated information was collected on Wave 1 respondents who had moved away from Los Angeles County. A sample of individuals who moved into each sampled neighborhood between Waves 1 and 2 was also interviewed, for a total of 2,319 adults and 1,382 children (ages less than 18 years).

A new feature in L.A.FANS-2 was the collection of physiological health measures. Interviewers collected blood pressure, pulse, height, weight, hip and waist circumference, and a pulmonary function assessment (spirometry) from respondents. Saliva samples were collected from child respondents. 50% of L.A.FANS households were selected at random and respondents were asked to provide dried blood spot (DBS) samples. The initial release of L.A.FANS-2 data included only the blood pressure and anthropometry data. This collection contains the spirometry, saliva, and DBS data. The saliva and DBS datasets each have one record per respondent who completed the health module, while the spirometry dataset has one record for each trial.

Data in this study are designed for use with the public use data files for L.A.FANS, Wave 1 (study 1) and Wave 2 (study 2). Additional information on the project is available on the L.A.FANS series page and the RAND website.

Additional information on the project, survey design, sample, and variables are available from:

• Sastry, Narayan, Bonnie Ghosh-Dastidar, John Adams, and Anne R. Pebley (2006). The Design of a Multilevel Survey of Children, Families, and Communities: The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, Social Science Research, Volume 35, Number 4, Pages 1000-1024
• The Users' Guides (Wave 1 and Wave 2)
• RAND Documentation Reports page

The 500 Family Study was designed to obtain in-depth information on middle class, dual-career families living in the United States. To understand the complex dynamics of today's families and the strategies they use to balance the demands of work and family, over 500 families from 8 cities across the United States were studied. To address different issues facing parents with older and younger children, families with adolescents and families with kindergartners were included in the sample. Working mothers and fathers are now splitting their time between their responsibilities to their family, and to their respective occupations. This study of 500 families explores how work affects the lives and well-being of parents and their children.

The study's data allows researchers to explore a broad range of questions:

• How do dual-career families manage and organize their resources and time between family and work?
• How do work conditions, including characteristics of the job and workplace environment, affect the quality of relationships among household members?
• How do dual career parents manage the moral and social development and learning experiences of their children?
• How do the work-related responsibilities of working parents affect their child's moral, social, and educational development?
• What effect is consumerism and technology having on how working families direct the moral and social development of their children?
• What do parents believe is their role regarding the child-care of their children and how they should fulfill that role both in terms of time and in the allocation of economic and social resources? What are some of the resources in the community that parents use to supervise their children?
• How do families regard the "free time" of adolescents and how they allocate adolescent "free time" in maintenance of the household?
• What is the quality of relationships among family members?

To obtain a detailed picture of work and family life, mothers, fathers, and their children were asked to complete a series of instruments including surveys, in-depth interviews, and time diaries. These instruments were designed to provide information about work, marriage, child care and parental supervision, management of household tasks, time allocations, coping strategies, and psychological well-being.

The four datasets associated with this data collection are summarized below:

1. The Cortisol Data contains information for a subsample of families that elected to participate in a study of psychological stress. Parents and teenagers who agreed to participate completed an additional two days of ESM data collection. The health survey that was administered reported on a variety of health and lifestyle issues that might affect cortisol (stress hormone) levels such as medication use, consumption of caffeine and alcohol, use of nicotine, timing of menstrual cycle, pregnancy, presence of chronic illness, and respondent's height and weight. Additionally, parents reported on the health of the children (teenagers and kindergartners) participating in the study.
2. The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) Data contains a variety of information related to how individuals spend their time, who they spent it with, and what activities they were engaged in over the course of a typical week. Respondents wore programmed wrist watches that emitted signals (beeps) throughout the day. When possible, family members were placed on identical signaling schedules to provide information on a range of family activities. At the time of each beep, participants were asked to complete a self-report form which asked them to answer a number of open-ended questions about their location, activities, who they were with, and psychological states. Several Likert and semantic-differential scales were used to assess participants' psychological states.
3. The Parent Data contains basic demographic information from respondents as well as detailed information about parents' occupation job duties, income, work schedule, benefits (e.g., medical care, flexible work schedules, and family leave), and the consequences of their jobs (e.g. long hours, job stress, having to work weekends). Additionally, the data contain information about the extent to which parents experienced work-family conflict and what changes might help with better balance of the demands of work and family (e.g., more flexible work hours, more help from spouses with household and child care responsibilities, improved child care, and after-school care arrangements). Parental attitudes toward traditional arrangements, how household tasks were actually divided among family members, and how often the family paid for services (e.g., cleaning, yard work, meal preparation) were also captured. The data also contain information about how children are socialized in families with two working parents. Topics about the frequency with which parents engaged in various activities with their children (e.g., talking, eating meals together, attending religious services), how frequently parents monitored their teenager's activities, and how often they talked with their teenager about school activities, plans for college, career plans, friendships, and peer pressure.
4. The Adolescent Data contains data for sixth through twelfth graders, which focuses on family relationships and experiences, school experiences, paid work, psychological well-being and behavioral problems, and plans for the future (e.g., college, career, and marriage -- including expectations regarding spouses' sharing of responsibility for child care, cooking, chores, and paid work). To allow for comparison of parents' and adolescents' responses to similar questions, several items appear in both the adolescent and parent data. These items include the frequency with which parents and adolescents discuss school events, college and career plans, participation in religious and other activities, gender role attitudes and the division of household tasks within the family, and items measuring depression, stress, and anxiety.

Qualitative Data -- Interviews The main purpose of the interviews was to explore topics addressed in the parent and adolescent surveys in greater detail. Parent interviews were designed to examine how working parents cope with the demands of work and family life. Adolescent interviews touched on similar themes but altered questions to gauge the adolescent's perceptions of their parents work and family lives. Kindergartner interviews were brief and focused on children's after-school and child care arrangements and time spent with parents.

The TAZAMA Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) study site is located in the Kisesa and Bukandwe rural electoral wards in the Magu district of the Mwanza Region in Northern Tanzania. The two wards are comprised of six villages. There is one health center and five dispensaries (3 public and 2 private) in the study area. The two wards have eleven government primary schools (at least one in each village) and two secondary schools. Both Mwanza city and Magu town are accessible to residents; buses run along the main road and take about an hour and a half to get to Mwanza. Most of the residents are subsistence farmers; a lot of surplus agricultural produce is traded in Mwanza, which is Tanzania's second city. In the year 2012, the research study covered a population of about 30,000 people who live in the Kisesa and Bukandwe wards. The majority of the residents (about ninety five per cent) belong to the Sukuma ethnic group.

The DSS collects information on births and deaths and movements in and out of the households. It helps researchers to understand the population dynamics in the study area including fertility, mortality and migration patterns. It provides information on the structure of families that live together. The DSS study is also used to identify people who are eligible to participate in the serological surveys (the right age group, and continuously resident rather than just visiting). It provides the data for calculating the denominators for demographic rates.

The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) to improve understanding of the dynamics of the HIV epidemic; (2) to assess the demographic, social and economic impacts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic; (3) to evaluate the effects of national prevention, treatment and care interventions as implemented in Kisesa Ward; (4) to measure child and adult mortality and fertility in the general population and by HIV status; (5) to asses the leading causes of death through verbal autopsy; (6) to assess changes in the family structure due to HIV epidemic; and (7) to provide reliable data for district health planning.

The Requests for Assistance with Adaptive Switches from Individuals with Severe Communication Impairments study is one of the three projects in the Communication of People with MR, 2006 to 2012 Series, which focuses on identifying participant variables that predict success in increasing communication skills of individual with intellectual disabilities. The study data were collected to show how children and adults with profound multiple impairments can learn to request assistance with adaptive switches and to on examine the change from pre-intentional to intentional symbolic communication.

The study examined 77 respondents, ages 2 through 71, by administering three assessments: the Communication Complexity Scale (CCS), the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and a functional vision assessment. The CCS was administered to 68 respondents on up to three occasions. The first occasion of administration was to participants who were pre-intentional communicators. The CCS was administered on a second occasion to participants when they were identified as being on the cusp between pre-intentional and intentional communication. The third and final occasion of administration occurred when participants were identified as "learners" and could express preferences using switches and other means.

The Mullen Scales were administered to 22 of the participants. Of the 77 participants initially selected for the study, 7 did not complete either scale. Vision impairment was identified in 68 respondents, 28 who had no functional use and 41 who had some functional use of their vision.

The Young Children with Physical Disabilities Seattle, Washington study is one of the three projects in the Communication of People with MR, 2006 to 2012 Series, which focuses on identifying participant variables that predict success in increasing communication skills of individual with intellectual disabilities. The study data were collected to show that triadic eye gaze for joint attention can be established in very young children with moderate or severe motor impairments.

Dataset 1 contains 48 cases. Most cases include data on results of the Complexity of Communication Scale, a measure developed by the Communication of People with MR project. In addition, Dataset 1 contains data on a Functional Assessment, the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales.

Dataset 2 contains data on Triadic Eye Gaze and Coordinated Joint Attention. Participants for Dataset 2 were convenience sampled from birth-to-three centers in Seattle, Washington. There were 18 participants, children with severe physical disabilities between 10 and 24 months of age, who were randomly assigned to one of two groups: (a) an experimental treatment group ( n = 9) or (b) a control group ( n = 9).

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The Michigan Study of Life After Prison examined the association between neighborhood context and outcomes related to employment and recidivism among the cohort of former prisoners released on parole from Michigan state prisons in one calendar year (2003), controlling for pre-incarceration neighborhood context, local labor market conditions, and a large set of individual characteristics. The primary goals of this study were to answer two questions: (1) "Are ex-offenders who are released to more disadvantaged neighborhoods (those with greater poverty, unemployment, residential turnover, etc.) more likely to recidivate?" (2) "Are ex-offenders who are released to more disadvantaged neighborhoods less likely to gain stable employment?" This research sought to supplement available literature on prisoner reentry and criminal desistance, which the researchers posit existing literature has largely ignored the role that neighborhoods play in shaping the recidivism and employment of returning prisoners.

The 31 data files included as part of this collection are as follows:

Cleaned Data Files:

• casenotearrestsreps1-4_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 4,932 Cases, 12 Variables
• casenotearrestsreps5-8_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 5,302 Cases, 13 Variables
• casenotearrestsrep9_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 2,321 Cases, 13 Variables
• casenoteemploymentreps1-4_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 4,871 Cases, 28 Variables
• casenoteemploymentreps5-8_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 4,754 Cases, 23 Variables
• casenoteemploymentrep9_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 2,610 Cases, 23 Variables
• cleanedcasenoteaddressesreps1-8_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 50,207 Cases, 72 Variables
• cleanedcasenoteaddressesrep9_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 10,309 Cases, 69 Variables
• preprisonaddress_all_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 5,183 Cases, 30 Variables
• preprisonaddress_all_rep9_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 1,017 Cases, 63 Variables
• postprisads_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 11,064 Cases, 41 Variables
• cleaned-demographics-population_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 11,064 Cases, 57 Variables
• simplecrimhistory.dta: 11,064 Cases, 4 Variables
• popSAhistory.dta: 11,064 Cases, 8 Variables
• deathdates_ICPSR-EDITED.dta: 308 Cases, 3 Variables
• popprisonenterdates.dta: 11,064 Cases, 7 Variables
• discharge dates.dta: 7,369 Cases, 5 Variables
• parole and release dates for pop.dta: 11,064 cases, 3 Variables
• mdoc_recidivism_measures.dta: 11,064 Cases, 6 Variables
• recidivism dates from transits.dta: 11,064 Cases, 8 Variables
• recidivism from bir.dta: 11,064 Cases, 3 Variables
• sample marker.dta: 3,689 Cases, 2 Variables
• samplereps.dta: 3,689 Cases, 2 Variables
• tta_rsid_rep.dta: 1,363 Cases, 2 Variables

The Language Development of Non-verbal Children Age 3 Years through 7 Years in the Kansas Metro Area is one of the three projects in the Communication of People with MR, 2006 to 2012 Series, which focuses on identifying participant variables that predict success in increasing communication skills of individual with intellectual disabilities. Data for Dataset 1 of this study were collected to illustrate how acquisition of symbolic communication using Voice Output Communication Aid (VOCA) affects the development of successful communication exchanges. For the data collection of Dataset 1, children were recruited by contacting school districts in and near the Kansas City metropolitan area, specifically, in Topeka, Kansas, and Wichita, Kansas. Teachers and speech-language pathologists were asked to nominate any children meeting specific criteria. The 93 children who were enrolled were administered the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and the Preschool Language Scale. A structured play assessment was also administered.

Subsequently, data for Dataset 2 was collected to analyze and compare 19 Spanish-speaking children to the original sample. Both data files contain the results of Complexity of Communication Scale, a measure developed by the Communication of People with MR project.

The Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) evaluation was launched in 2003 to develop, to implement, and to test the effectiveness of a program aimed at strengthening low-income couples' marriages as one approach for supporting stable and nurturing family environments and parents' and children's well-being. The evaluation was led by MDRC and was sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families, United States Department of Health and Human Services.The SHM program was a voluntary yearlong marriage education program for low-income married couples who had children or were expecting a child. The program provided a series of group workshops based on structured curricula designed to enhance couples' relationships; supplemental activities to build on workshop themes; and family support services to address participation barriers, connect families with other services, and reinforce curricular themes.

The study sample consists of 6,298 couples (12,596 adult sample members) who were expecting a child or had a child under 18 years old at the time of study entry. The sample consists primarily of low-to-modest income, married couples with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. In each family, one child was randomly selected to be the focus of any child-related measures gathered in the data collection activities. These children ranged from pre-birth to 14 years old at the time of enrollment in the study. Follow-up interviews were conducted at 12 and 30 months after baseline data collection. More detail is provided in the study documentation.