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L.A.FANS Data

The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey data collection for Wave 1 began in April 2000 and ended in mid-January 2002. Public Use Data and Restricted Data from Wave 1 are available to researchers.

Data collection for Wave 2 of L.A.FANS began in Fall 2006 and ended in November 2008. Public Use and Restricted Data are available to researchers.

Contextual data on all census tracts in Los Angeles County are also available for researchers to use in conjunction with Waves 1 and 2 or independently.

Public Use Data

The Public Use Data contain treated individual characteristics. This means that some data are top-coded (e.g. income) or coded in broader categories (e.g. ethnicity), as described in the codebook. The Public Use Data exclude detailed information that is likely to enable indirect identification of L.A.FANS respondents. Some items listed in the questionnaires, such as employer names and addresses, will not be included in any version of the data. See the codebook for information about individual variables.

Restricted Use Data

Restricted Data includes those data fields that may enable identification of survey respondents through deductive identification.

The L.A.FANS has created four versions of Restricted Data, each of which requires a different level of access requirements and data security.

Comparison of different versions of L.A.FANS Data

The four versions of L.A.FANS Restricted Data differ in the amount and detail of confidential information they include. A summary description of these three versions and the Public Use Data is provided in the table below.

Table 1. Comparison of different versions of L.A.FANS data
  Public Use Data Restricted Data V.1 Restricted Data V.2 Restricted Data V.2.5 Restricted Data V.3
Data types
Direct identifiers - - - - -
Geographic coordinates - - - - Yes
Census block number - - - Yes Yes
Census tract number - - Yes Yes Yes
Pseudo tract number - Yes** - - -
Neighborhood characteristics Yes* Yes* Yes Yes Yes
Distance variables Yes* Yes Yes Yes Yes
Individual characteristics Yes* Yes Yes Yes Yes
Sensitive behavior - Yes Yes Yes Yes

Contextual Data

L.A.FANS has collected or assembled contextual data for Los Angeles that can be used in conjunction with the L.A.FANS Restricted Data or independently. Contextual data for L.A.FANS comprises of the L.A.FANS Neighborhood Observations and the Los Angeles Neighborhood Services and Characteristics Database.