RDC News: February 2015

Upcoming Hours Changes!

Please remember that the Reading Week break means:
Mills Library is closed on Monday, February 16th for the Family Day holiday
Early library closing times of 4:45pm from Tuesday, February 17th to Friday, February 20th
No extended hours on Tues. Feb. 17th and Thurs. Feb. 19th

Please consult the schedule for Mills Library for more information.

EXTENDED DEADLINE: Call for Proposals for the Incident-Based Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey - Hate Crime Data - Pilot Project
The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics is conducting a pilot project where UCR Hate Crime data for 2010, 2011, and 2012 will be accessible via a select number of RDCs. Data on hate crimes (incidents motivated by hatred towards groups based on race, ethnicity, language, religion, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, and other similar factors) is compiled from 2 Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) surveys; these measure the incidence of police-reported crime and its characteristics. With access to this Hate Crime Data, analyses could be conducted based on variables such as victim and/or accused characteristics (e.g. sex, age, level of injury, accused status), hate crime motivation, geographic region, most serious weapon present, most serious violation, and more.

The original proposal deadline was November 24th, 2014 . This has now been extended to February 26th, 2015. If you would like further information, please email us.

New data sets at the RDC:
In the upcoming weeks we will be receiving new data sets and surveys at the McMaster Research Data Centre. Please see the information below. Researchers interested in accessing these data sets are encouraged to submit proposals!

Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS): Cycle 3
The Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) collects information on the population ages 3 to 79 years living in the ten provinces, through both an in-home interview as well as physical measurements through a mobile clinic. Household interviews gather information on nutrition, smoking, alcohol use, medical history, sexual behaviour, physical activity, environment and housing characteristics, and demographic and socioeconomic variables. Physical measures include blood pressure, height, weight, as well as blood and urine samples to test for chronic and infectious diseases, nutrition and environmental markers. The CHMS stores biological samples for further analyses at a later date (CHMS Biobank) - the actual samples are also available to health researchers, through calls for proposals that are held twice a year. However, the records from these samples are available through the RDC in the CHMS file. The Cycle 3 data covers information gathered from January 2012 to December 2013; note that researchers can pool data with information from previous cycles. This is a rich data set that might interest those working on health, disease risk factors and health status, and lifestyle and social conditions.

The RDC will be accepting proposals for work with the CHMS now. For further details please go to the information page on the Statistics Canada website: http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl? Function=getSurvey&Survld=145921&lnstald=136652&SDDS=5071