Research Guides: Urban and Environmental Policy: Finding Data

Public Data Sets

Data.gov
United States Government's open data site

U.S. Census Bureau

Leading source of up-to-date demographic data about the United States people and economy.
ICPSR Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research

Data archive of research in the social and behavioral sciences, including specialized collections of data on health, education, criminal justice, substance abuse and social media. Users may have to log in with their Oxy email for off-campus access to some datasets. NOTE: ICPSR prohibits uploading datasets from their platform to AI tools.
IPUMS

Database of census and survey data from around the world integrated across time and space. Users must create a free account to access.

Bureau of Labor Statistics
Principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy.
Sustainability Action Network (SUSAN)
Central database for climate research and data created by researchers at McGill University, Canada.
State of Working America Data Library
Provides researchers, media, and the public with easily accessible, up-to-date, and comprehensive historical data on the American labor force. It is compiled from Economic Policy Institute analysis of government data sources. Use it to research wages, inequality, and other economic indicators over time and among demographic groups.
General Social Survey
Contains a standard 'core' of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions, plus topics of special interest since 1972 to facilitate time-trend studies as well as replication of earlier findings.
American National Election Studies
ANES produces high quality data from its own surveys on voting, public opinion, and political participation.
National Center for Education Statistics
The primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations.

CLASP Center for Law and Social Policy

CLASP conducts analysis of national, state, and local data to accurately document racial disparities and disparate policy impacts by race to inform our policy recommendations and advocacy.

American Immigration Council
State-by-state immigration data and facts.
World Bank
Free and open access to data about development in countries around the globe.
UN Statistics Department
Compiles and disseminates global statistical information, develop standards and norms for statistical activities, and support countries' efforts to strengthen their national statistical systems.

California & Los Angeles Data

California Health and Human Services Open Data Portal
Open Data Portal initiative in order to increase public access to one of the State’s most valuable assets – non-confidential health and human services data.
California Health Interview Survey (CHIS)
Provides health estimates for California's diverse population at the local level (census tracts, zip codes and cities). Requires free account login.
California Open Data Portal
California open data repository.
Los Angeles City Controller
LA is your source for information about the City of Los Angeles' expenditures, revenues, payroll, purchasing, special funds, and more.
Los Angeles City Planning
Los Angeles City Planning reviews project applications, processing entitlements, and approvals, administers the Zoning Code, promotes urban design principles, and manages the City’s historic resources. There are two Open Data tools under Resources: Open Data Portal and GeoHub.
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
Information and data regarding public health in Los Angeles and California.
Los Angeles City Open Data
Los Angeles City open data repository.
Los Angeles County Open Data
Open data repository for LA County
Neighborhood Data for Social Change
A project of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, NDSC is a free, publicly available online resource for civic actors to learn about the trends, challenges, and opportunities facing Los Angeles County neighborhoods through maps, charts, data analysis, and storytelling.
Southern California Earthquake Data Center
The Southern California Earthquake Data Center (SCEDC) is the archive of the Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN). Its primary mission is to distribute data recorded or processed by the SCSN.
United States Census Bureau - Los Angeles Regional Office
The Los Angeles Regional Office is responsible for all data collection, data dissemination, and geographic operations under a new service area boundary. States within the Los Angeles Region's service area include Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Environment and Energy

Data Refuge
Result of data rescue events aimed at creating a refuge for federal data and providing access to harvested data.

State Statistics
Contains datasets covering critical social science statistics for the U.S., states, counties, cities, ZIP Codes, and Census Tracts. Access through the Oxy VPN when off campus.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Data
Access to open data compiled, collected and hosted by the Environmental Protection Agency.
National Agricultural Statistics Service
Conducts surveys and prepares reports covering virtually every aspect of U.S. agriculture.
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) - National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Responsible for preserving, monitoring, assessing, and providing public access to the Nation's climate and historical weather data and information. Find data on a number of climate and weather phenomena collected through a variety of techniques.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
The Environmental Data Explorer is the authoritative source for data sets used by UNEP and its partners in the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report and other integrated environment assessments.
United States Department of Agriculture - Economic Research Service
Mission to anticipate and research trends and emerging issues in agriculture, food, the environment, and rural America.
United States Geological Survey
We provide science about natural hazards, natural resources, the health of ecosystems and environment, and the impacts of climate and land-use change. Data, both historical and real-time, presented for a number of analysis platforms including map analyses.
US Energy Information Administration - Open Data
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information. Find data in API format for multiple platforms including Excel and Google Sheets.

Data Mapping Tools

PolicyMap

Mapping and analytics tool for research related to social sciences, urban studies, housing, community development, public administration, public health, education, business and more. Also includes Claritas Prizm population segmentation data.
Social Explorer

Online research and data mapping tool with Census data and demographic information.

My Community Explorer (U.S. Census)
A data mapping tool to identify economically, environmentally and social vulnerable communities.
Mapping L.A.
Demographic data visualized by neighborhood from the LA Times
National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network
From the CDC
LAPD Crime Mapping
Interactive maps of crimes by type and neighborhood Sept 2011-Present.
Food Access Research Atlas
Presents an overview of food access indicators for low-income and other census tracts using different measures of supermarket accessibility. Offers census-tract-level data on food access that can be downloaded for community planning or research purposes.