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

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.

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