Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS) Series

collection: series

Studies

14

Variables

19,174

Publications

402

About this Collection

The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS) is a three-wave study of adults and children in Los Angeles County and of the neighborhoods in which they live.

L.A.FANS was designed to enable research on neighborhoods themselves and on the effects of neighborhood social environments on households and individuals by collecting longitudinal data on neighborhoods, families, children, and on residential choice and neighborhood change.

Waves 1 and 2

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, 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 <18 years). Additional information on the first two waves is available at www.lasurvey.rand.org.

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

Wave 3

The third wave was carried out by Robert Mare (UCLA) and Robert Sampson (Harvard) as part of the Mixed Income Project (MIP), which was based on samples of participants in two surveys: L.A.FANS and the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhood (PHDCN). Wave 3 of L.A.FANS, fielded between 2011 and 2013, was based on a random probability sample of approximately 1,000 randomly selected adults (RSAs) and children from the second wave of L.A.FANS. Additional information about L.A.FANS-3 and public use data are available at the DSDR study page or the Mixed-Income Neighborhoods Project website.

Study Purpose

L.A.FANS was designed to enable research on neighborhoods themselves and on neighborhood effects on households and individuals by collecting longitudinal data on neighborhoods, adults and children, and on residential choice and neighborhood change. The survey provides data to answer key research and policy questions on a wide range of topics related to the population of Los Angeles and urban structure and change, including: adult health and health disparities, immigrant well-being, social ties and neighborhood interaction, marriage patterns, ethnic identity, family survival strategies, family dynamics, the interactions of individual behavior and neighborhood social and physical environments, and many others. L.A.FANS Waves 1 and 2 include numerous items and question sets from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) Series, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics main study, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement (PSID-CDS), facilitating comparative analysis.

Study Design

Data were collected in three waves, in 2000-2001, 2006-2008, and 2011-2013.

Sample

L.A.FANS is based on a stratified random sample of 65 neighborhoods (1990 census tracts) in Los Angeles County, California. Poor neighborhoods were oversampled. Note: Given the sample design, multivariate analyses (using restricted data) which incorporate neighborhood-level effects must use 1990 census tracts (not tracts from the 2000 or subsequent censuses) in order to correctly estimate model parameters. 

Restricted Data

Almost all L.A.FANS data are available in public use data sets. To protect respondent confidentiality and reduce the risk of deductive disclosure of respondent identity or geography, a limited set of potentially sensitive data are not available in the public use files. For Waves 1 and 2, these data are in a set of restricted data files available through a restricted data contract. Restricted data are not available for Wave 3. Users are advised to attempt to conduct their analyses using the public use data before considering whether they need to apply for the restricted data for Waves 1 and 2. Users who need the restricted data for their analysis may only apply for the specific data that they need.

To accommodate differing user needs, the L.A.FANS project created four versions of restricted data for Waves 1 and 2. The availability of potentially sensitive variables in the public use and each version of restricted data is shown below in Table 1.

It is important to note that the L.A.FANS Restricted Neighborhoods Observations Data, 2000-2001 (ICPSR 37272) is designed to be used with the Wave 1 survey interview data restricted version 2.5 to provide data on the 1990 census block and 1990 census tract in which individual respondents lived.

Comparison of different versions of L.A. FANS data

The four versions of L.A.FANS Restricted Data differ in the amount and detail of confidential information they include. A summary description of these three versions and the Public Use Data is provided in the table below.

Table 1. Comparison of different versions of L.A. FANS Wave 1 and 2 data

  Public Use Data Restricted Data
V.1 V.2 V.2.5 V.3
Data Types          
Direct identifiers - - - - -
Geographic coordinates - - - - Yes
Census block number - - - Yes -
Census tract number - - Yes Yes*** -
Pseudo tract number - Yes** - - -
Neighborhood characteristics Yes* Yes* Yes Yes Yes
Distance variables Yes* Yes Yes Yes Yes
Individual characteristics Yes* Yes Yes Yes Yes
Sensitive behavior - Yes Yes Yes Yes
*Some of the characteristics are treated for disclosure protection are not included.
**A number from 1 to 65 is randomly assigned to each tract. No information on the
actual tract number is provided in Restricted Data V.1.
***Version 2.5 contains 1990 census tract information only.

Studies

14 results

Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS), Wave 2, Biomarker Data, 2006-2008

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

Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS), Wave 3, Public Data | Mixed Income Project (MIP), 2011-2013

This study includes one public use data file of follow-up interviews, conducted between 2011 and 2013, with respondents to Wave 2 of L.A.FANS (Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey). This follow-up data collection effort (hereafter called L.A.FANS-3 or Wave 3) was part of the broader Mixed Income Project (MIP), which was designed to allow for detailed examination of neighborhood context, residential mobility, and mixed-income housing in Los Angeles and Chicago. The two anchor studies for the MIP are L.A.FANS and the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN).

Wave 3 targeted a random probability sample of approximately 1,000 randomly selected adults and children from the prior wave of L.A.FANS, which was fielded between 2006 and 2008, who still resided within Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles field operation first assigned selected respondents to a telephone survey center for interviews. Cases that were not interviewed by telephone were transferred to experienced field interviewers in the Los Angeles area. The final response rate was 75 percent of eligible participants (i.e., residents who still resided in Los Angeles County and who were not institutionalized, incapacitated, or deceased) for a combined sample of 1,032. Two-hundred and two (202) of these respondents were reached during a preliminary Field Test in 2011, after which point the survey was slightly revised. After making these revisions, 830 respondents were reached during the Main Study. For more details on sampling procedures for the Field Test and Main Study, see Methodology section below.

For context, the L.A.FANS is a study of adults and children in Los Angeles County, and of the neighborhoods in which they live. The first wave (L.A.FANS-1 or Wave 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 still living in Los Angeles County were re-interviewed, while 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). Additional information on the project is available at the RAND website.

Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS), Los Angeles Neighborhood Services and Characteristics Data (L.A.NSC), 1980-2010

This study, known as the Los Angeles Neighborhood Services and Characteristics data (L.A.NSC) includes data from governmental and business data sources on the characteristics of census tracts in Los Angeles County from 1980 to 2010. The unit of analysis is 1990 census tract (census tracts using 1990 census tract boundaries). The data also include crosswalks for census boundaries across census years. It is public use data.

The L.A.NSC data were assembled by the L.A.FANS projects to be used with L.A.FANS survey data restricted data versions 2, 2.5, and 3 all of which contain 1990 census tract numbers which can be linked with data in this file. However, the L.A.NSC files includes ALL census tracts in Los Angeles County, not just the 65 tracts sampled by L.A.FANS. Thus, the L.A.NSC data can be analyzed on their own without linkage to L.A.FANS survey data and provide longitudinal data on the characteristics of Los Angeles census tracts over a 30 year period.

Additional information on the data is available at the RAND website. See also:

  • The L.A.NSC Database Users' Guides (The Los Angeles Neighborhood Services and Characteristics Database: Codebook and 2010 Neighborhood Services and Characteristics Database: NSC2).

Variables

19,174 results
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