The NCHS Research Data
Center (RDC), located at the NCHS headquarters in Hyattsville, Maryland,
allows researchers meeting certain qualifications, and under strict
supervision, to access confidential data.
Visiting NCHS
Please see our tips for visiting NCHS
to make the best of your visit.
To visit the RDC, researchers must work under the supervision of the RDC
staff during normal working hours
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.–
5:00 p.m.).
Workstations
Guest Researchers can use the RDC facility to securely analyze approved data
using Windows workstations provided with SAS, SUDAAN,
and Stata. Additional programming
or analytic languages can be added as needed.
Data confidentiality Prior to RDC access, researchers
must:
Complete and sign the
Designated Agent form .
Note:This form must be notarized before you arrive at NCHS.
If you are not a U.S. citizen, you will need to
register with the Visitor Management System
at
least 15 workdays before your visit.
When you arrive, you will also need to fill out
two more confidentiality forms: "Agreement Regarding Conditions of
Access"
and "Researcher Affidavit of Confidentiality."
Please note: The RDC reserves the right to terminate any project at any
time that it deems that an investigator's actions will compromise
confidentiality or ethical standards of behavior in a research environment.
Payment
Please pay the invoice we send you. You can pay
with an institutional check, a personal check, a money order, or an Interagency
Agreement. We do not accept Purchase Orders or credit cards.
Please include your Social Security Number on any
personal check.
For an institutional check, ask your institution
to put the Employer Identification Number (EIN) and your name on the comment line so that we can link your payment
with our invoice.
Rigorous
security standards To maintain
the highest level of security and fully protect confidentiality, the RDC
developed the following security standards for onsite access: RDC
computers
Do
not provide access to the NCHS network, the CDC/NCHS mainframe, or
the Internet,
Users
may not remove data or information from the workstations,
Users
only have read-only access to requested data files and can write only
to the local workstation's hard disk.
Output Researchers may take the results of their analyses off-site only
after disclosure review by NCHS RDC staff. Disclosure review consists of
looking for tabular cells less than five, tables with geographic variables
in any dimension, models with geographic variables (or variables tantamount
to geographic variables) as outcome variables, or case listings. In general,
disclosure review is consistent with the guidelines published in the NCHS
Staff Manual on Confidentiality (see Requirements
for Using the Onsite Facilitiesfor more information).