On Site at an NCHS RDC
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The National Center for Health Statistics manages several RDC sites:
- Hyattsville, MD (DC-metropolitan area) at NCHS headquarters
- Atlanta, GA at the CDC Century Center Campus
- Washington, DC at the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters
Statistical Software
The NCHS RDC workstations are equipped with:
- SAS
- Stata
- SAS-callable SUDAAN
If you would like to use a different software product or add-ons, there may be a delay in approval and/or access. Due to disclosure concerns not all software and add-ons are allowed.
Before Your Visit
- Schedule your appointment: The RDC is open to researchers by appointment during normal business hours (Monday – Friday from 9:00 am to 5:00pm). Researchers must be monitored by RDC staff when working in the RDC. Please schedule your appointment at least one week in advance to ensure we are able to accommodate your request.
- A maximum of three collaborating researchers can sit at a computer workstation at the same time, subject to the availability.
- Non-U.S. citizen require additional paperwork before coming onsite, please contact your RDC Analyst for details.
- Visits exceeding 5 days in a 90-day period may require a background check. Please let your RDC Analyst know if this is a possibility.
- Email your statistical programming code and reference documentation (codebooks, statistical reference materials, etc.) to your RDC Analyst. RDC computers do not have access to the Internet nor do we allow flash drives, therefore all documents must be emailed at least two business days before your visit. The RDC Analyst will review the documents and upload them to the workstation.
Rules
- Analysis and resulting output must be within the scope of the approved proposal. We limit the release of output to what is necessary for publication. Discuss any changes to your analysis plan with your RDC Analyst, since it may result in a mode new proposal or amendment.
- If you have multiple research projects, you are only allowed to work on one at a time. Do not attempt to access multiple projects or data from multiple projects at the same time.
- All codes, output, and notes must undergo disclosure review by and RDC Analyst before removal from the RDC. Absolutely no individual level data will leave the RDC facilities.
- The RDC reserves the right to search all materials brought into or leaving the facility. Cell phones, pagers, laptops, cameras or other electronic communication devices are not permitted in the RDC.
- Do not bring items into the RDC that may enable you to identify individuals and/or establishments (e.g. a national hospital directory, information from voter registration). Do not attempt to put any content in your code that would facilitate re-identification of a subject/establishment.
- Before requesting disclosure review, you must review your output for potential disclosure risk and unnecessary information.
- Please discuss the content of the output you submitted and its purpose in your research with your RDC Analyst. We strongly encourage you to populate the actual tables that will appear in your publication and submit those for review.
- Submit your output in a human-readable plain text file (i.e., .lst files from SAS, tab delimited text .txt files or comma-separated values .csv files). Release of additional formats for output is at the discretion of the RDC Analyst.
- Researchers must make a special request if they wish to have intermediate output (output that will not appear in publication) reviewed. This output can certainly be created and used on site, but we discourage its release.
- Any attempt to obtain prohibited information (e.g. items that would not pass disclosure review) will result in an immediate suspension of the account and possible legal actions.
- Page last reviewed: February 25, 2015
- Page last updated: February 25, 2015
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