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RAND California Statistical Databases Exercise
Introduction to RAND California Statistics
RAND California (Oviatt Library subscription) includes approximately 100 statistical databases about California. Data is available at various geographic levels. Some of the databases cover the entire nation.
- From the Library's Home Page, choose Databases A-Z.
- Find and click on RAND California. This will take you to the RAND California homepage.
- Type the words "Ventura County" in the SEARCH DATABASE CATEGORIES, VARIABLES, AND DESCRIPTIONS: box and click on Search. This will generate a list of the statistical databases in RAND California that have data for the county.
- Use the Back button on the browser to return to the RAND California homepage. Click on "Search This Website". You get an explanation of how to search effectively as well as a box to input a keyword search. Search for "zip code". This generates a list of the statistical databases in RAND California that have zip code level data.
- Use the Back button on the browser to return to the RAND California homepage. Click on the STATISTICS button.
- You are now at a menu page that makes it easy to browse the statistical databases available from RAND California by broad category. Selecting a category leads to a display of the statistical databases RAND has classified as belonging in that category. As an example, the category "Community" leads to 14 databases on crime, parks, population density, housing prices, traffic congestion/safety, and weather.
- RAND California Statistics Categories lists information about the statistics available and provides information on data sources. (This page is a link entitled Statistics Summary from the RAND California homepage).
Class Exercise: Find statistics on domestic violence in the City of Los Angeles
- Go to the RAND California homepage.
- Use the SEARCH DATABASE CATEGORIES, VARIABLES, AND DESCRIPTIONS box or "Search this Website", or the STATISTICS button to get to the statistical database on Domestic Violence Number of Crimes.
- Click in all the boxes for total calls and type of weapon involved.
- Select jurisdiction. Los Angeles City is under "Jurisdictions by county: I-L". Scroll down the list until you get to Los Angeles County, then click on Los Angeles. Note that the instructions tell you how to select more than one jurisdiction if that is what you want. Practice how to do this by finding CSUN's statistics as well as those for Los Angeles City. If you make a mistake or change your mind about jurisdictions or some other aspect of the search and you cannot seem to undo the mistake easily, click on Reset (near the bottom of the page) to clear the form so you can start over.
- Choose a format. Most frequently used are:
- View Online (HTML table), which displays a table
- Graph (requires JAVA), which displays a line graph online
- Tab delimited (import to spreadsheet), the other format choice, is useful if you want to import the data into another program (such as Excel or SSPS).
- Choose a time period. The default is set for as many years as the data is available.
- Note that you can choose to organize the results by area or category, which is useful for searches that compare locations. Also, you can increase the maximum number of hits from 50 up to 500 for searches with many areas or variables involved.
- Click on Submit. If you want to change your results from an online table to a graph, click on the Back button, change the format option as appropriate, and click on Submit. Most graphs offer a button to toggle between value and index data.
Additional questions to practice using RAND California statistics
Business and Economics
- People often desire information about specific careers. What are the occupational projections for librarians in Los Angeles and Ventura counties?
- What is the level of office vacancies for Los Angeles suburban areas? Is this higher or lower than for the downtown area?
- Find the California Gross State Product for the last 20 years. Compare this, preferably with a graph or chart, to the U.S. Gross National Product for the same time period.
Population and Demographics
- What is the current population of Santa Barbara?
- Find population projections for the Los Angeles area by race/ethnicity for at least the next 20 years.
- Find the number of legal immigrants from Central America to Los Angeles in the last 10 years.
- How many children and young adults have committed suicide in Ventura County since 1990?
Education Statistics
- Find the number of Asian students at local high schools, Mission and Pierce community colleges, and California State University, Northridge (current and as many past years as possible; you will have to use more than one source in RAND California).
- Find the percent of students at each public elementary school in Northridge that are poor. (Define poor as on AFDC or getting free school meals). For this exercise, use zip codes 91324 and 91325 for Northridge. To find out which other zip codes are associated with Northridge, you could use ZIP Code Look-up, a site linked from Community Information by Zip Code.
- Compare SAT scores for students in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Make a graph.
Community Statistics
- How safe and busy is the San Fernando Valley part of the 405 Freeway?
- Find statistics on Chatsworth's average temperature and rainfall.
Health and Socioeconomic Statistics
- Find statistics on homeless people being treated for drug or alcohol abuse in Los Angeles.
- How much money do people on welfare in Los Angeles County get? How many people are on welfare in the county?
Created and maintained by Mary M. Finley
Questions or comments: mary.finley@csun.edu
Links checked: 20 February 2008
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