Contact person: Tom W. Smith, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, 1155 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637; phone (773) 256-6288; fax: (773) 753-7886; email: smitht@norcmail.uchicago.edu; homepage: http://www.issp.org/.

The International Social Survey Program (ISSP) is the cross-between the General Social Survey (GSS) and its counterparts in Germany, Britain, and Australia. Studies on 15 different topics, ranging from the environment to social inequality have been completed. There are now 31 member countries participating in the ISSP. It is a valuable resource for researchers undertaking comparative analysis or studying attitudes, behaviors, and attributes of adult populations in other countries.

Contact persons: Robert M. Hauser and Taissa S. Hauser, Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706; phone (608) 262-2182; fax (608) 262-8400; email: wls@ssc.wisc.edu; homepage: http://dpls.dacc.wisc.edu/wls/wlsarch.htm/ .

The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) is a 35-year study of the social and economic life course among 10,000 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957, and who have been followed up at ages 25, 36, and 53-54. Data from the original respondents or their parents from 1957 to 1975 cover social background, youthful and adult aspirations, schooling, military service, family formation, labor market experience, and social participation. The 1992-93 surveys cover occupational histories; income, assets, and economic transfers; social and economic characteristics of parents, siblings, and children; and mental and physical health and well-being. Parallel interviews have been carried out with siblings in 1977 and 1993-94. WLS data and documentation are available on the World Wide Web.

Contact persons: Sandra Hofferth and Bill Shay, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248; phone (734) 763-5131 or (734) 963-1773; fax (734) 647-4575; email: psid_staff@umich.edu;   homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~psid/.

Now in its thirtieth year of data collection, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of U.S. men, women, and children and the families in which they reside. Data on employment, income, wealth, health, housing, and food expenditures, transfer income, and marital and fertility behavior have been collected annually since 1968. From 5,000 families in 1968, the study has grown to include over 10,000 families, including more than 2,000 families of Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Mexican descent, interviewed from 1990 through 1995.

The study has collected high quality intergenerational data on economic capacity, income, and the transmission of wealth, as well as information on such issues as the long-term effects of life events (early childbearing, divorce, illness) on workers and their families, the relationship of business cycles to economic well-being, and the interaction of labor mobility and geographic mobility. In recent years, the value of the PSID has been further extended through matching PSID respondents to Census geocodes, permitting the addition of valuable neighborhood characteristics to individual files. The coverage of the PSID was expanded in 1997 with the addition of an immigrant refresher sample and a child development supplement covering children from birth through age 12.

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics homepage is available to Internet browsers worldwide. The most recent versions of all PSID data and supplements can be downloaded from this site. Documentation, errata, and a newsletter are also available.

Contact person: Jo Jones, The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, The Add Health Project, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-3997; phone (919) 962-8412; fax (919) 966-7019; email: jo_jones@unc.edu; homepage: http://www.cpc.unc.edu/adhealth.

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is a longitudinal study which provides data uniquely qualified to address the most important questions about adolescent health and health behaviors today. A national sample of 7th to 12th grade students completed 90,000 in-school questionnaires during the 1994-1995 school year. Twenty thousand students and a parent were interviewed in their homes during the summer of 1995; fourteen thousand of the adolescents were re-interviewed during the summer of 1996. Add Health provides a comprehensive view of adolescent health with information on: (1) physical, mental, and emotional health status, including self-reported and measured height and weight, injuries, physical disabilities, sleep disorders, self-esteem, suicide ideation; and (2) health behaviors, including eating disorders, substance use and abuse, weapon carrying and use, measures used to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, sexual behavior, contraceptive use, nutrition, exercise, and use of health services. The Add Health Study’s unique design provides an unprecedented view of how an adolescent’s health is shaped by characteristics of the world in which he or she lives. As well as the adolescent’s view of his or her world, independent measures of the adolescent’s social contexts are available. For example, the adolescent’s family context is provided through data from the parent questionnaire. Peer influence is assessed through network data collected for same and opposite sex friends, as well as romantic partners. School policies and characteristics are reported in a short school administrator questionnaire, collected in 1995 and updated in 1996. A rich data set of local indicators provides information about constraints and opportunities in the local community.

The Ohio State University, Center for Human Resource Research

Contact person: Paula Baker, Center for Human Resource Research, 921 Chatham Lane, Suite 200, Columbus, OH 43221-2418; phone (614) 442-7300; fax (614) 442-7329; homepage: http://www.chrr.ohio-state.edu/.   For data &/or documentation,

Contact NLS User Services at usersvc@postoffice.chrr.ohio-state.edu.

The Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) is a longitudinal data set that focuses on the cognitive, socio-emotional, and physiological development of the children of the mothers in the NLSY79. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, with support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the NLSY Child is an outgrowth of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth.

Started in 1986 and repeated biennially, the NLSY79 Child uses mother report and direct assessment to gauge the children’s cognitive ability, temperament, motor and social development, behavior problems, perceived self-competence, and home environment. Since 1988, information has been gathered from older children on child-parent interaction, family decision-making, school attitudes, work activities, peer relationships, religious service attendance, substance use, and sexual activity. The 1994 survey round replaced, for children 15 and older, the child assessment series with an hour-long CAPI interview on schooling, employment, training, family experiences, health, and attitudes. Repeated in 1996, the NLSY79 Young Adult survey also includes a confidential self-report on substance use, sexual activity, non-normative activities, computer use, and pro-social behavior. By 1996, the child sample ranges in age from birth to early twenties. The National Longitudinal Surveys are also a featured exhibit (see #20 listed below for a description of these data).

The Center for Human Resource Research (CHRR) issues the maternal and child data and documentation at a nominal cost on CD-ROM. Topical research bibliographies and a users handbook are available at no charge to users.

Contact CHRR NLS User Services at (614)442-7366 or usersvc@postoffice.chrr.ohio-state.edu.

Contact person: Douglas S. Massey, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania/University Of Guadalajara, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6298; phone (215) 898-4688; fax (215) 898-2124; e-mail: dmassey@lexis.pop.upenn.edu;  homepage: http://lexis.pop.upenn.edu/mexmig/.

Each year the Mexican Migration Project surveys 4-6 communities located in Mexico’s leading sources states for migration to the United States. These community surveys are gathered using simple random sampling and generally include 200 randomly selected households. In the course of interviewing, it quickly became clear where in the United States migrants from each community go. Consequently, several months later interviewers are sent to these U.S. destinations to survey 10-20 out-migrants who have settled north of the border and no longer return home frequently enough to be interviewed in the Mexican surveys.

A weighting scheme has been developed to pool the U.S. and Mexican surveys into a single sample that accurately represents the binational migrant community. To date, 52 communities have been sampled and incorporated into the database, which contains six basic datafiles; PERSFILE contains basic socioeconomic information on household members, including basic information on the first and last U.S. trips. HOUSFILE contains information on the soci-demographic composition and economic status of households; MIGFILE contains detailed information on the household head’s last trip to the United States; LIFEFILE contains a complete life history of all household heads, which includes a complete migration and border-crossing history. The final two files are at the community level: COMCROSS contains cross sectional information on the survey at the time of the survey, and COMYEAR is an event history from 1940 to the survey year that records the changing social and economic setting in each community. All datafiles are publicly available via the Internet from the Mexican Migration Project’s home page, listed above.

Contact persons: Katryn Murrell, Molly Petrick, Tamara Kuhn, Sociometrics Corporation, 170 State Street, Suite 260, Los Altos, CA 94022; phone (650) 949-3282 x 203; fax (650) 949-3299; email: kmurrell@socio.com or mpetrick@socio.com;   homepage: http://www.socio.com.

Sociometrics Corporation is a research and development firm specializing in social science research applications. Sociometrics produces many data resources for researchers, including easy to use CD-ROMs of data archives. Data archives are compilations of original data and documentation from outstanding studies in important social science fields. Data archives on CD-ROM include complete raw data, and SPSS and SAS command statements files, and Search & Retrieval/Data Extract software.

This exhibit will highlight the Sociometrics’ Electronic Social Science Data Library. The Library consists of six topically focused data archives: AIDS/STD, Disability in the U.S., American Family, Adolescent Pregnancy and Pregnancy Prevention, Maternal Drug Abuse, and Aging. With over 300 data sets from 187 different studies, the Sociometrics’ Electronic Social Science Data Library represents a unique source of high quality health and social science data for researchers.

Contact person: Kristen Garlock, JSTOR; 301 Liberty Street, Suite 310, Ann Arbor, MI 48104; phone (734) 998-9108; fax (734) 998-9113; e-mail lynae@umich.edu;  homepage: http://www.jstor.org/.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization established in 1995 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in electronic technologies. JSTOR’s primary emphasis is on the creation of a trusted archive of the back files of core scholarly journals, and improving access to those back files. The journal storage project began as a test involving the digitization of ten journals in the fields of history and economics. These journals were combined in a database, housed on a central server, and the database was delivered via the Internet to users at an initial group of five university test sites in the U.S. JSTOR has now grown to include the complete back files of over 47 journals in eleven fields, with over 300 library sites in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. The initial plans are to include a minimum of 100 journals in a variety of fields, and to make the back files of those titles available by the year 2000. The ASA is a JSTOR partner with five of its journals. The American Sociological Review, Contemporary Sociology, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Social Psychology Quarterly, and Sociology of Education are part of JSTOR.

JSTOR is committed to a system-wide approach, taking into account the needs of publishers, libraries, and scholars. It is believed that working with JSTOR can offer benefits to all those involved in the field of electronic scholarly communication. More information about JSTOR, including a demonstration of the research capabilities of the database is available on the World Wide Web site listed above.

Contact person: Theodore J. Hull, Center for Electronic Records, National Archives and Records Administration, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20740-6001; phone (301) 713-6645; fax (301) 713-6911; email: theodore.hull@arch2.nara.gov or cer@nara.gov; homepage: http://www.nara.gov/.

The National Archives is the federal agency responsible for preservation of and access to the permanently valuable electronic records of the federal government. The Center for Electronic Records has custody of the permanently valuable computerized records of federal agencies transferred to the National Archives for long-term preservation. The Center has approximately 100,000 computerized data files from over 100 federal agencies in all three branches of government. Topics reflected in the Center’s holdings include agricultural data, attitudinal data, demographic data, economic and financial statistics, education data, environmental data, health and social services data, international data, military data, and scientific and technological data. The exhibit will highlight the availability of data files in the Center's custody of particular interest to sociologists.

Contact person: Carl Schmitt, National Center for Education Statistics, 555 New Jersey Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 20208; phone (202) 219-1642; fax (202) 219-1736; email: carl_schmitt@ed.gov, homepage, http://www.ed.gov/NCES/

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) disseminates large national data sets on CD-ROM with electronic codebooks and via the Internet at its World Wide Web page listed above. Current data releases include school and institutional censuses for basic data on enrollments and finances at the elementary, secondary, and post secondary levels of public and private education. More detailed data are available through repeated cross-sectional surveys of teachers and faculty. A Random Digit Dialing (RDD) household survey is used to collect population based education data on topics such as early childhood education, school safety, and adult education. In addition, the NCES collection of longitudinal data on elementary, secondary, and postsecondary cohorts continues. Longitudinal data are available from seniors in 1972, 1982, and 1992 as well as for students who have just started their post secondary education and students who just completed their baccalaureate. This exhibit will demonstrate the NCES web site and data resources available on-line.

Contact person: Julie Yates, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Suite 4945, 2 Massachusetts Ave. N.E., Washington, DC 20212; phone: (202) 606-7388; fax (202) 606-6425; email: yates_j@bls.gov;  homepage: http://stats.bls.gov/nlshome.htm.

The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) gather detailed information about labor market experiences and other aspects of the lives of six groups of American men and women. Many NLS survey members have been followed for many years, some for decades, allowing researchers to study large panels of men, women and children over significant segments of their lives. The surveys include data about a wide range of events such as schooling and career transitions, marriage and fertility, training investments, welfare recipiency, child-care usage, and drug and alcohol use.

The Original Cohorts, initiated in 1966, consist of four cohorts; "older men", "mature women", "young men" and "young women." These four groups were selected because each faced important labor market decisions including initial family and career decisions, labor force attachment as children leave home, and retirement decisions. In 1979, a cohort of about 12,000 young men and women aged 14 to 22 was begun (NLSY79). Data collected yearly, biennially since 1994, chronicle their transitions from school to work, and from their parent’s homes to becoming parents and homeowners. In 1986, the NLSY79 was expanded to include surveys of the children born to women in that cohort. Repeated biennially, the NLSY79 Child data includes measures of cognitive ability, temperament, and home environment. Older children complete an NLSY79 styled interview. In 1997 a new cohort of approximately 8,700 young people aged 12 to 16 was begun (NLSY97). One unique aspect of the NLSY97 is that it also contains a parent questionnaire that generates information about the youth's family background and history.

Contact persons: Linda R. Washington and Tammy Stewart-Prather, National Center for Health Statistics, Data Dissemination Branch, 6525 Belcrest Road, Room 10-64, Hyattsville, MD 20782; phone (301) 436-6154 ext. 176; fax (301) 436-4273; email: lrw1@cdc.gov;  homepage: http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/nchshome.htm.

This exhibit will showcase the latest health data available from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Data are available from NCHS in published form and electronically, including, public-use data files, CD-ROMs, and diskettes, and through the Internet. Demonstrations of various NCHS surveys on CD-ROMs will be featured. The CD-ROMs utilize the Statistical Export and Tabulation System (SETS), a software program, developed in house, that allows manipulation of large data sets on personal computers.

Contact person: Donna L. Hoyert, Mortality Statistics Branch, Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, 6525 Belcrest Road, Room 820, Hyattsville, MD 20782; phone (301) 436-8884 ext. 168; fax (301) 436-7066; email: dlh7@cdc.gov;  homepage: http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/about/major/dvs/mortdata.htm.

Selected mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) will be profiled. National, state and local mortality data from the NCHS are available from vital records filed in each of the states for deaths of all ages, infant, fetal, and linked birth/infant deaths. Supplemental data at the national level on characteristics of deceased persons (e.g., life style, extent of burden of illness, and socio-economic characteristics) are available from periodic surveys of samples of recent deaths. Data are released in publications, tapes, CD-ROMs, CDC WONDER, and the Internet. CDC WONDER is a general-purpose health and communications system that can be accessed via the World Wide Web.

Contact person: Lola Jean Kozak, National Center for Health Statistics,Division of Health Care Statistics, 6525 Belcrest Road, Room 9-52, Hyattsville, MD 20782; phone (301) 436-7125 x184; fax (301) 436-5452; email: ljk4@cdc.gov; homepage: http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/nchshome.htm.

The National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS), conducted each year since 1965, collects data from a sample of inpatient records obtained from a national sample of short-stay hospitals. In 1995, data was collected for 282,00 discharges from 480 hospitals. The survey produces national estimates of inpatient hospital use by demographic characteristics, diagnoses, and surgical and non-surgical procedures. The National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery (NSAS). Conducted for the first time from 1994 through 1996, collects similar data from a national sample of ambulatory surgery patients in short-stay hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers. The 1996 NSAS data were abstracted from 125,000 medical records in 488 facilities. Data from the NHDS and NSAS can be combined to obtain information on procedures performed in both ambulatory and inpatient settings.

Contact person: J. Neil Russell, National Center for Health Statistics, Division of Health Interview Statistics, 6525 Belcrest Road, Room 850 Hyattsville, MD 20782; phone (301) 436-7089, ext. 150; fax (301) 436-3484; email: jkr9@cdc.gov; homepage: http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/about/major/nhis/nhis.htm.

The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is the principal source of information on the health of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States. The NHIS was initiated in 1957, and is a nationally representative annual survey of U.S. households.

NHIS data are used to monitor trends in illness and disability and to track progress toward achieving national health objectives. The data are also used for epidemiologic and policy analysis on various health problems, for determining barriers to access, and access to health care.

In addition to basic health and demographic items collected each year, special supplements are also fielded. Recent supplements are: immunization, family resources, health insurance, access to care, AIDS knowledge and attitudes, Year 2000 Objectives, and disability. Data is available on mainframe tape and CD-ROM.