Integrated Samples of Latin American Censuses, 1960-2003

描述（由申请人提供）：自1960年以来，涵盖拉丁美洲的原始人口普查微观数据的庞大档案以机器可读的形式保存下来。然而，研究人员仍然无法获得这些数据的大部分。这项建议寻求资金，以便为大约55个拉丁美洲和加勒比人口普查建立统一和有文件记录的样本。这些微数据和元数据将通过基于网络的数据传播系统提供给学术和教育研究。该项目利用了之前联邦政府对社会科学基础设施的投资。美国国立卫生研究院和美国国家科学基金会的赠款资助了许多初始费用，为拉丁美洲数据系列奠定了基础。这些项目包括制订数据清理和抽样程序、数据转换和传播软件以及数据和文件的设计规程。已经获得了几乎所有拉丁美洲国家的原始微观数据文件、内部文件和人口普查的重新分配协议。因此，为拉丁美洲开发新的公共用途样品的成本将不到以前项目的一半。必须执行下列任务，以利用这些过去的投资，并使研究人员广泛获得拉丁美洲的数据：干净的原始数据文件；从100%的内部人口普查档案中抽取新的样本；实施保密保护；将变量重新编码到现有的协调编码系统中，并开发针对拉丁美洲进行优化的新编码设计；分配缺失和不一致的数据值；创建一组一致的构造变量；制定统一的英文文件；将所有文档转换为数据文档计划元数据标准；改进和维护基于web的数据访问系统。这个新的数据库有超过1亿条记录，涵盖了40年的时间，它将使社会科学家能够对拉丁美洲国家在40年的巨大变化中进行比较。该数据系列将产生大量关于经济发展、人口转型和人口老龄化、国际移徙和许多其他主题的与健康有关的新科学和政策研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A vast archive of raw census micro data covering Latin America in the period since 1960 survives in machine readable form. The bulk of these data, however, remains inaccessible to researchers. This proposal seeks funding to create harmonized and documented samples of approximately fifty-five Latin American and Caribbean censuses. These micro data and metadata will be made available for scholarly and educational research through a web-based data dissemination system. This project leverages previous federal investments in social science infrastructure. Grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have laid the groundwork for the Latin American data series by funding many of the initial costs. These projects have underwritten the development of data cleaning and sampling procedures, data conversion and dissemination software, and design protocols for data and documentation. Raw micro data files, internal documentation, and redistribution agreements for the censuses of virtually every Latin American country have been obtained. As a result, the costs of developing new public-use samples for Latin America will be less than half as great as for previous projects. The following tasks must be carried out to capitalize on these past investments and make the Latin American data widely available to researchers: clean raw data files; draw new samples from 100% internal census files; impose confidentiality protections; recode variables into existing harmonized coding systems and develop new coding designs optimized for Latin America; allocate missing and inconsistent data values; create a set of consistent constructed variables; develop harmonized English-language documentation; convert all documentation to the Data Documentation Initiative metadata standard; and improve and maintain the web-based data access system. With over 100 million records covering a forty-year period, the new database will allow social scientists to make comparisons across Latin American nations during four decades of dramatic change. The data series will result in a substantial body of new scientific and policy-relevant health-related research on economic development, demographic transition and population aging, international migration, and many other topics.