National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) Restricted Variables

The most common request for restricted NSFG data is to access contextual information on the respondent’s state or county of residence. Contextual information is available starting in the 1976 NSFG. The table “Geographic variables from NSFG” below shows the contextual variables available for each file. These variables may be used to merge external information about place of residence onto the files. After the merge, the geographic identifiers of interest are replaced with a masked version of those variables so that the actual locations in the sample cannot be identified. Masked versions of geographic variables can be used as controls, if needed. Estimates cannot be produced for specific states or counties. For more information on this, please see question #17 in the NSFG FAQ.

Geographic variables from NSFG

Additional restricted-use survey variables are also available for some data releases, such as detailed information about the respondent’s race. Please see the information below for specific information about each data release.