Finding facts & figures about social issues
Pew Social & Demographic Trends http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/ The Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project studies behaviors and attitudes of Americans in key realms of their lives, including family, community, health, finance, work and leisure. The project explores these topics by combining original public opinion survey research with social, economic and demographic data analysis.
Child Trends Databank. http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/
National trends and research on over 80 key indicators of child and youth well-being.
NCES: National Center for Education Statistics. http://nces.ed.gov/
Data related to education in the U.S. and other nations. Includes Digest of Educational Statistics.
NCHS: National Center for Health Statistics. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs
Monitoring the nation's health; includes Health United States, showing national trends in health and health care.
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/
Brings together data from more than 100 sources about many aspects of criminal justice in the United States.
A Statistical Portrait Of The United States. Social Conditions And Trends.
HA214 .S73 2002
GSS: General Social Survey. http://www.norc.org/GSS+Website/
A standard "core" of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions. Many questions have remained unchanged since 1972 to facilitate time-trend studies. A unique and valuable resource, GSS has tracked the opinions of Americans over the last four decades. (Some facility with data files is recommended, although pre-generated tables are available.)
American FactFinder2. http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml
Population, housing, economic, and geographical information from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2000-. Not always easy to use, but very powerful and up-to-date.
Government Information
The US Government produces vast amounts of information and research on every topic. It is considered authoritative and accurate. Additionally, the government collects statistics on most topics, which can give you actual numbers to back up your research.
Publications of the US Government: OSU is a large depository of federal and state government information. Access is provided primarily through the OSU Online Catalog. Search just as you would for other kinds of information (by using subject, keyword, or author entries). While OSU Libraries has a vast amount in print, microfiche, and other tangible forms, most current government information is published online. The catalog provides direct links to government websites and e-publications.
Laws, Regulations, etc.: Primary online access to these publications is through the government database FDsys. There are many other ways to get to these publications, but this is probably the easiest.
For further, detailed information on how (and where) to search for various kinds of government information, please see the guide.
