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| Sponsor: | U.S. Department of Commerce/U.S. Census Bureau |
| Description: | The Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD) is a longitudinal database drawn from a study designed to collect data on the economic, household, and social characteristics of a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population over time. Core data include employment, income, welfare program participation, health insurance and utilization, child well-being, marital relationships, and parents’ depression. The SPD also had topical modules that vary by year. The primary goals of the SPD were to provide information on spells of actual and potential welfare program participation (over a ten-year period), to examine the causes of program participation and its long-term consequences (on recipients and their families), and to monitor the possible long-term changes (for individuals) that result from implementing welfare reform. |
| Relevant Policy Issues: | Measurement of Health Status, Income Status, Unemployment Rates, Economic Assistance Program Participation Rates, Economic Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Factors Contributing to Educational Disparities, Measures of Well-being for Families/households, Factors Contributing to Well-being Disparities of Families, Measures of Well-being for Children, Factors Contributing to Well-being Disparities of Children, Transportation Availability, Eligibility and Use of Other Veterans Administration Benefits. |
| Data Type(s): | Survey |
| Unit of Analysis: | Individual |
| Identification of AI/AN/NA: | The race item on all versions of the SPD questionnaire reads: “Which
of these categories best describes (your/name’s) race?”
|
| AI/AN/NA Population in Data Set: | In the 1992 - 2002 longitudinal file with a total of 129,013 records, there are 1,100 unique American Indian, Aleut or Eskimo respondents. |
| Geographic Scope: | The geographic scope of the study is national. Geographic areas identified are regions (i.e., Northeast, Midwest, South, West), and states. Geographic analysis is possible by region and by state. |
| Date or Frequency: | The SPD is a longitudinal database. Data were collected annually from 1997 - 2002. There are no plans for future administrations of the SPD. |
| Data Collection Methodology: | Data are collected in person using computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI). The original pool of respondents for the SPD were households that were previously interviewed in the 1992 and 1993 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) panels. The first round of SPD data collection was conducted in 1997 using a modified version of the March Current Population Survey. After the 1997 wave of data collection, the SPD questionnaire was developed and administered from 1998 through 2002. |
| Participation: | Optional, with incentives |
| Response Rate: | Unweighted response rates are reported for the 1997-2002 administrations
of the SPD as follows:
|
| Sampling Methodology: | The 1997 SPD recontacted the sample members who were interviewed for
the 1992 and 1993 SIPP panels. The SIPP samples were multistage, stratified
samples of the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population.
The sample size for the 1997 SPD was 34,609 households. Census field representatives interviewed 30,125 households. At any given point in time, a household was eligible to be interviewed if it contained an original sample member (age 15 or older). The number of eligible households fluctuated from round to round of interviewing because of household formation and dissolution — and because original sample members move from one (previously eligible) household to another (previously ineligible) household. |
| Strengths: | Data are collected on key policy issues, including health and child welfare. There are multiple years of data available. The documentation of the content and implementation of the SPD is comprehensive and available on-line. |
| Limitations: | Asians and Pacific Islanders are collapsed into a single response category in all versions of the SPD. |
| Access Requirements and Use Restrictions: | Data are available to the public at no cost. Data are publicly available for each wave of data collection as well as a longitudinal file across all years of data collection. |
| Contact Information: | The actual data are available for download from the following website:
http://www.bls.census.gov/spd/access.html.
Questions about the SPD should be addressed to: dsd.survey.program.dynamics@census.gov |
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