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In QUEST, you will need to use a lot of statistics to establish the scope (how many people are affected by the issue?) and severity (what effects does it have on them and their lives?) of your social issue. This is the first step to changing any social problem. Stats tend to be gathered mostly by government and intergovernmental agencies, universities, and reliable nonprofit organizations. See below for some of the places to get started.
In QUEST, you will need to use a lot of statistics to establish the scope (how many people are affected by the issue?) and severity (what effects does it have on them and their lives?) of your social issue. This is the first step to changing any social problem. Stats tend to be gathered mostly by government and intergovernmental agencies, universities, and reliable nonprofit organizations. See below for some of the places to get started.
Slide Deck: How to get started on gathering scope and severity data
Example of how to annotate a page of a source with a lot of data/charts/graphs
MULTIPLE SOCIAL ISSUES:
MULTIPLE SOCIAL ISSUES:
A large nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that conducts surveys on a wide variety of U.S. issues. Widely regarded as a neutral source with good methodology.
A large U.S. polling company. Have you ever heard, "according to a Gallup poll..."? That was these guys.
Public Policy Institute of California
A nonpartisan "think tank" and research organization co-founded in 1994 by a UC Berkeley chancellor, the former dean of Stanford Business School, and the co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard company. Conducts polls and organizes conferences on a variety of social issues.
HEALTH:
HEALTH:
CDC--National Center for Health Statistics
Medline Plus Health Stats (a service of the National Library of Medicine)
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI--for all science and medicine topics, not just biotech!)
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
American Psychological Association data links page
Some of these require user registration, but many are open-access
Pub Med (medical research studies, many available in full text)
Food and Nutrition Data, Dept. of Agriculture
National Cancer Institute Stats
Cancer Statistics, also from NCI
ECONOMICS, EMPLOYMENT, POVERTY, HUNGER, HOMELESSNESS:
ECONOMICS, EMPLOYMENT, POVERTY, HUNGER, HOMELESSNESS:
Hunger: California Association of Food Banks data page
California Dept. of Social Services Data page
Provides data from the State of California on hunger, services for people with disabilities, services for children, etc.
Economy at a Glance (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Homelessness: the American Housing Survey
Co-sponsored by HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) and the U.S. Census Bureau. New one coming out in 2025.
Homelessness: Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies
Unmployment: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Outlook Handbook: Includes stats on jobs gathered by the BLS (see above)
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (statistics about employment discrimination)
STEM:
STEM:
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
Pew Research--Internet and Technology
Pew Research--public perception of artificial intelligence
ENVIRONMENTAL and ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ISSUES:
ENVIRONMENTAL and ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ISSUES:
*NOTE: QUEST is based on human social issues, so if you choose an environmental topic, make sure to keep your focus on the human impact (ex: health, economic, etc.) of that environmental problem.
Really cool site that cross references data about social factors like poverty with environmental factors like air pollution. Check it out for environmental injustice topics.
Environmental Justice Factsheets, Univ. of Michigan
CDC Environmental Justice Index (this page is currently fighting with the Trump administration over its right to exist, as you can see from the disclaimer at the top of the page. Statistics may not be political, but which ones get shared often is).
EDUCATION:
EDUCATION:
National Center for Education Statistics
How many students with disabilities receive services?
CRIME, INCARCERATION, JUSTICE SYSTEM, LAW ENFORCEMENT:
CRIME, INCARCERATION, JUSTICE SYSTEM, LAW ENFORCEMENT:
Criminal justice system topics
Hate Crime Statistics from the FBI
Law Enforcement Epidemiology Project at the University of Illinois School of Public Health
Mapping Police Violence (anti-police-violence nonprofit)
Washington Post police violence project
Open Policing Project, Stanford University
DISCRIMINATION:
DISCRIMINATION:
*TIP: For this topic, it is helpful to think of ways in which discrimination appears that can be measured, and look those up separately. For example: hate crimes, employment discrimination, housing discrimination, etc.
LGBT Issues--Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law
This think tank within UCLA law school conducts research on LGBT issues and does an LGBT analysis of the U.S. Census to answer questions like how many Americans are gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/etc.
Hate Crime Statistics from the FBI
OTHER TOPICS:
OTHER TOPICS:
Artificial Intelligence Impact on Employment
Automation / AI Impact on Employment
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Statistics about Sports (from the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition)
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission--injuries and deaths associated with various activities
Immigration--U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Office of Homeland Security Statistics
Note to researchers in 2025 from Ms. McAuley:
Note to researchers in 2025 from Ms. McAuley:
A significant feature of the current administration of Donald Trump has been a number of executive orders to reduce the staffing of and change the content published by government agencies. You may see disclaimers like the following at the top of government websites, and you may have questions about this. This underscores a lesson that we want to learn in QUEST anyway--the importance of asking questions and consulting multiple data sources all the time to get as close as you can to the truth, any time you are looking for data in your life. Long live empirical research, and may we be ever curious and let the data guide us! As Neil De Grasse Tyson, the astronomer, said, "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
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