Data Sharing and Archiving for Demographic Research

Project Summary
The Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR) project of the Inter-university Consortium
for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) supports population science and related fields by
making it possible for researchers, policy makers and others to discover, access, and analyze
relevant secondary data. Access to high-quality, generalizable data about populations facilitates
scientific advancements at a pace that is not possible when researchers are limited to the data
resources they produce themselves. Specifically, data that are findable, accessible,
interoperable, and reusable are critical to transparency and research reproducibility as well as
making it feasible for scientists to combine data of different types and from different sources for
a more nuanced understanding of the context of health outcomes and behaviors. DSDR
provides the infrastructure for researchers to see the scope of available data; access both
public- and restricted-use data while protecting human subjects; integrate emerging data types
such as biomarkers, genomics, and administrative record data; and learn from others in the
demographic community about the data and relevant analytic techniques.
DSDR leverages the capabilities and capacities of ICPSR, the Institute for Social Research, and
the University of Michigan to support research on maternal and child health, the lifecourse,
health disparities, migration, relationship formation and dissolution, and more in the U.S. and
internationally. To meet the aims set forth by NICHD, DSDR proposes five main objectives: 1)
Sustain and build the collection of data, documentation, and other support files, 2) Improve
discoverability and exploration of data, 3) Amplify access to restricted-use data, 4) Enable the
combining of new types of data (e.g., biomarkers, neuroimages, and administrative records)
with survey data, and 5) Offer training and perform outreach to engage the demographic
community. ICPSR’s high-quality curation, creation of standardized information describing the
data, dissemination of complete documentation including codebooks and user guides, and
training opportunities ensures researchers can more easily find, evaluate, and use data
collected by others to answer new and innovative research questions while upholding
respondent privacy expectations.

Grant Number: 5R24HD048404-20
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: Joseph Alexander