“Announcing the 2023 IPUMS Research Award Winners”

PUMS stands for Public Use Microdata Sample—it’s a subset of the U.S. Census that contains individual-level data, I think it was 1% of the Census. I don’t know the full history, but here’s the current Census website with these data.

IPUMS is a compendium of public use microdata from different sources:

In collaboration with 105 national statistical agencies, nine national archives, and three genealogical organizations, IPUMS has created the world’s largest accessible database of census microdata. IPUMS includes almost a billion records from U.S. censuses from 1790 to the present and over a billion records from the international censuses of over 100 countries. We have also harmonized survey data with over 30,000 integrated variables and 150 million records, including the Current Population Survey, the American Community Survey, the National Health Interview Survey, the Demographic and Health Surveys, and an expanding collection of labor force, health, and education surveys. In total, IPUMS currently disseminates integrated microdata describing 1.4 billion individuals drawn from over 750 censuses and surveys. . . .

Our signature activity is harmonizing variable codes and documentation to be fully consistent across datasets. This work rests on an extensive technical infrastructure developed over more than two decades, including the first structured metadata system for integrating disparate datasets. By using a data warehousing approach, we extract, transform, and load data from diverse sources into a single view schema so data from different sources become compatible. The large-scale data integration from IPUMS makes thousands of population datasets interoperable. . . .

I’m on their mailing list—maybe I requested some of their data at some point?—and this announcement came in the email:

We are thrilled to announce the winners of our annual IPUMS Research Awards competition. This competition celebrates innovative research from 2023 that uses IPUMS data to advance or deepen our understanding of social and demographic processes. . . .

IPUMS USA

• Best published work: Zachary Ward. “Intergenerational Mobility in American History: Accounting for Race and Measurement Error.”
• Best student work: Jonathan Tollefson. “Environmental Risk and the Reorganization of Urban Inequality in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century.”

IPUMS Spatial: IPUMS NHGIS, IPUMS IHGIS, IPUMS Terra, or IPUMS CDOH

• Best published work: Clark Gray and Maia Call. “Heat and Drought Reduce Subnational Population Growth in the Global Tropics.”
• Best student work: Nicolas Longuet-Marx. “Party Lines or Voter Preferences? Explaining Political Realignment.”

IPUMS CPS

• Best published work: Kaitlyn M. Berry, Julia A. Rivera Drew, Patrick J. Brady, and Rachel Widome. “Impact of Smoking Cessation on Household Food Security.”
• Best student work: Sungbin Park, Kyung Min Lee, and John Earle. “Death Without Benefits: Unemployment Insurance, Re-Employment, and the Spread of Covid.”

IPUMS International

• Best published work: Seife Dendir. “Intergenerational Education Mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
• Best student work: Rita Trias-Prats. “Gender Asymmetries in Household Leadership.”

IPUMS Global Health: IPUMS DHS and/or IPUMS PMA

• Best published work: Chad Hazlett, Antonio P. Ramos, and Stephen Smith. “Better Individual-Level Risk Models Can Improve the Targeting and Life-Saving Potential of Early-Mortality Interventions.”
• Best student work: Sara Ronnkvist, Brian Thiede, and Emma Barber. “Child Fostering in a Changing Climate: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa.”

IPUMS Health Surveys: IPUMS NHIS or IPUMS MEPS

• Best published work: Jessica Y Ho. “Lifecourse Patterns of Prescription Drug Use in the United States.”
• Best student work: Namgyoon Oh. “Nutrition to Nurturance: The Impact of Children’s WIC Eligibility Loss on Parental Well-being.”

IPUMS Time Use: IPUMS ATUS, IPUMS MTUS, or IPUMS AHTUS

• Best published work: Eunjeong Paek. “Workplace Computerization and Inequality in Schedule Control.”
• Best student work: Anja Gruber. “The Impact of Job Loss on Parental Time Investment.”

Excellence in Research This award highlights outstanding research using any of the IPUMS data collections by authors who identify as members of groups that are underrepresented in social science and health research.

• Best published work: Samuel H. Kye, and Andrew Halpern-Manners. “If Residential Segregation Persists, What Explains Widespread Increases in Residential Diversity?”
• Best student work: Sophie Li. “The Effect of a Woman-Friendly Occupation on Employment: U.S. Postmasters Before World War II.”

That’s great. I love that they give this award to people who use their data.

Also, their slogan is “Use it for good!” How cool is that?

Good job, IPUMS.