Monitoring Federal Data Availability and related actions

[Kathy Pettit]

People have asked about how to keep up with the changes and activities related to the federal data availability and the statistical offices.  Here's a list of the websites and forums we are aware of.  Hope they are helpful - feel free to share other ones not on the list.

Best, 

-Kathy Pettit

Urban Institute/NNIP

Monitoring and News

• Federal Data Forum - new online community hosted by the Population Reference Bureau will foster connection and collaboration among federal data users across sectors and states.

• American Statistical Association is monitoring federal statistical systems.

• America’s Data Index - Monitoring America's federal data infrastructure from dataset availability and new releases to planned and unplanned changes to collections.

• Roadmap to the Census 2030 - guiding document of milestones and actions leading to the goal of a “complete count” of all persons in the US during the 2030 Census, includes 2025 milestone updates

• wearethedata.us - Data Disaggregation Action Network (D-DAN) - works to advance and implement federal and state policies as they relate to disaggregation by race and ethnicity through the engagement and empowerment of communities. They have a listserv you can sign up for.

Contribute to the conversation

• America’s Essential Data. The group aims to document “the value that data produced by the federal government provides for American lives and livelihoods.” You know we love a data impact story, and their team has been developing a framework for telling your data story.

Centralized data preservation efforts 

• Library Innovation Lab Team, Harvard Law School Library 

• Data Rescue Project

• University of Illinois SDOH and Place Data Discovery App https://sdohplace.org/search

  NNIP-gathered list of data preservation efforts (general and topic-specific)  

[Denice Ross]

Kathy's email reminded me that this webinar tomorrow should be a great way to come up to speed on what's happening with federal data. 

Sign up here: https://napawash.org/events/technology-leadership-standing-panel-ensuring-the-future-of-federal-data

Ensuring the Future of Federal Data

May 21, 2025 @ 02:00:00 pm - May 21, 2025 @ 03:30:00 pm
Eastern Time (ET)

The federal government's massive data collections, a critical national resource, are under attack from the Trump administration. Federal agencies have already removed thousands of web pages and datasets following the president’s directives on DEI, climate change, and “gender ideology,” and other data collections may be altered to align with political agendas. While dozens of organizations have successfully downloaded, archived, and made available deleted data, the nation's future data is at risk. The Trump administration, as well as future administrations, may discontinue, modify, or alter many critical data collections in ways that could significantly hinder research, knowledge, and social progress. This panel will discuss the risks to federal data and explore various ways to address these risks, including advocacy, litigation, legislation, monitoring, and the development of new data sources.