New Grants Announced

IPUMS Health Surveys 

MPC Members Lynn Blewett (Professor, Health Policy & Management)  and Julia Drew (Research Scientist, IPUMS) have received funding from The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to support the IPUMS Health Surveys project for another five years. Highlights of the new grant include 1) the expansion of IPUMS MEPS to include the 1996-2023 medical conditions and health care event files; 2) a new variable construction system on the IPUMS MEPS website to facilitate the creation of downloadable, user-defined variables based on the condition and event data; and 3) two three-day, in-person MEPS training workshops geared towards early-career scholars. Congratulations to the Health Surveys team! 

 

IPUMS MICS

MPC Members Elizabeth Heger Boyle (Professor, Sociology), Miriam King (Research Scientist, IPUMS), and Matthew Sobek (Research Scientist, IPUMS) have received a new grant from The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for a five-year project to harmonize and disseminate the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) fielded by UNICEF. Focused on the health and well-being of women and children, more than 300 MICS surveys have been conducted in over 100 countries since the late 1990s. Despite its remarkable potential for comparative research, MICS has been underutilized due to data inconsistencies between countries and over the six rounds of the survey. IPUMS MICS aims to rectify this situation! 

 

Big Microdata Network

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded the Big Microdata Network to support the emerging interdisciplinary community of scientists using vast new collections of census data, including IPUMS full count data. The goals of the Big Microdata Network are to connect existing census data researchers and to expand and diversify the user community, thereby increasing access to these data and facilitating new research. We’ll eventually be hosting in-person conferences in Minneapolis, which should be a great way for the IPUMS team to connect with full count data users. MPC Member Catherine Fitch (Associate Director, ISRDI) will serve as project PI along with Co-PIs Steve Ruggles (Director, ISRDI) and Rob Warren (Director, MPC) and a steering committee of IPUMS users from across the world.