# Microdata for Population Dynamics and Health Research

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA · 2022 · $622,099

## Abstract

Project Summary
IPUMS is a family of nine integrated databases that comprise the largest and most intensively-used data
resource for research on population dynamics and health. This competing continuation proposal has two main
goals. First, the project will provide the primary support for expanding, improving, and maintaining IPUMS-USA,
which consists of microdata from decennial censuses and American Community Surveys. Second, the project
will provide central coordination across the nine IPUMS databases, exploiting synergies and eliminating
redundant work. Over the past five years, IPUMS has seen explosive growth in the number of researchers using
the database, the amount of data they request, and the number of high-impact publications they produce. At the
same time, however, there is unprecedented demand from researchers for expansion, improvement, and support
of the infrastructure. This project will undertake four major activities to meet this demand:
1. Database expansion. The quantity of data in IPUMS-USA will expand dramatically over the coming five years
 to include harmonized datasets providing two billion records of individual-level information.
2. Data and metadata improvement. Improving the quality of IPUMS-USA data and metadata is a top priority.
 We plan (1) new variables on family forms, poverty, and health insurance; (2) new geographic measures; (3)
 streamlined categorical variables.
3. Data infrastructure improvement. The project will implement (1) multi-processor data access software that
 will improve data access speed and accommodate the rapidly growing demand for large-scale data; (2) a
 user-facing API to enable direct access by external applications; (3) sustainability planning for online data
 analysis; (4) new data access capabilities.
4. IPUMS coordination. The project will synchronize of technological development, user support and outreach,
 and long-run planning for preservation and sustainability planning across the nine IPUMS databases to avoid
 duplication of effort, increase the impact, and reduce the cost of IPUMS data infrastructure.
IPUMS reduces costs for the population and health research community by minimizing redundant effort,
simplifying data access, increasing the replicability of studies, and improving data reliability. The availability of
large-scale integrated microdata has opened extraordinary new opportunities for fine-grained contextual
analyses of population dynamics and health, resulting in transformational research across a diverse range of
topics and disciplines.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10421323
- **Project number:** 5R01HD043392-20
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
- **Principal Investigator:** Sarah M Flood
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $622,099
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2002-09-27 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10421323

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10421323, Microdata for Population Dynamics and Health Research (5R01HD043392-20). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10421323. Licensed CC0.

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