Microdata sources for research on the Economics of Tobacco
Control Lynn Woolfrey Economics of Tobacco Control Workshop
University of Cape Town 25 June 2015
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Around 100,000 teenagers start smoking each day Photo:
Copyright: WHO
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Researchers Need to know what data sources exist and how to
access and appraise them
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ACCESS RELEVANCE COMPARABILITY TIMELINESS SUPPORT
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ACCESS RELEVANCE COMPARABILITY TIMELINESS SUPPORT
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Exercise 1 Find tobacco related data for your country Use the
following data discovery tools: DataFirsts data portal The World
Banks microdata catalog Data portal of your National Statistics
Office Open Access? Research Access Only?
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ACCESS RELEVANCE COMPARABILITY TIMELINESS SUPPORT Does the
dataset provide the data we need?
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Exercise 2 Check the following to see if the data is relevant
to your research: Survey metadata Questions in the survey
questionnaires Variable names and labels
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Example Demographic and Health surveys for your countries:
question text: Do you currently smoke cigarettes? In the last 24
hours, how many sticks of cigarettes did you smoke? Do you
currently smoke or use any other type of tobacco? What (other) type
of tobacco do you currently smoke or use?
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ACCESS RELEVANCE COMPARABILITY TIMELINESS SUPPORT Can we
compare the data across countries? over time? Between different
surveys for the same country?
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Exercise 3 Examine the metadata provided with the data to see
how this helps you to compare datasets Look at data from a survey
series for one country to determine what data collectors have done
to ensure comparable data
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ACCESS RELEVANCE COMPARABILITY TIMELINESS SUPPORT How recent is
the tobacco research data we can access?
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Exercise 3 Check the reference dates of all datasets for your
country that contain data useful to researchers on the project Data
reference date (date of collection, not date of production of the
dataset) Are data producers providing current statistics? Why the
time-lag in access?
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ACCESS RELEVANCE COMPARABILITY TIMELINESS SUPPORT Can we get
help with data analysis?
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Exercise 4 Open a data file and tabulate the relevant variables
How easy is the data to use? Check to see that all the supporting
documentation has been provided Can the metadata help here? Log a
query on DataFirsts support site