OVERVIEW OF APPLICATION PROCESS FOR SENSITIVE DATA

PSID and its supplements, including the PSID Child Development Supplement (CDS), has assured its respondents that their data will be anonymized and protected and that nobody using the data will be able to connect their survey responses to them personally. This assurance, and the potential negative consequences of its violation, are consequential for the individuals reporting sensitive information. In order to protect these individuals and their information, we require a special application procedure for researchers seeking to access these data. The special application procedure is described here.

Review of the application is typically completed within two weeks once all materials are received. Once approval is granted, the user account will have access to download the specified data files while signed into their account. Please submit application materials via the application portal and direct any questions about the process electronically to: psidhelp@umich.edu

Institutional Requirements for the Investigator
a) The Investigator must be an individual who has a permanent, full-time, doctoral-level appointment typically at an academic institution. b) Graduate students who wish to obtain the PSID sensitive data for the purposes of conducting research that leads to a doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis must be sponsored by a permanent, full-time, doctoral-level faculty member who takes all responsibility for the protection of the data and is the primary signer on the Institutional Review Board/Human Subjects Review Committee/Privacy Board application.

The faculty advisor is named as the mentor on the application and is responsible for ensuring that all confidentiality and security measures are upheld. Should a faculty advisor leave the receiving institution, they are responsible for notifying the PSID of this change. Graduate students must then obtain a new faculty advisor who will be named on the project until their research is completed. 		  c) Additional personnel. Additional co-investigators and/or research assistants will also need to apply for these data if they will have access to them. If named on the project, they may submit the same IRB approval information.

PSID Registration
Investigators must register as a data user with the PSID and agree to the Conditions of Use.

Research Plan
Applicants for PSID Sensitive data must provide a brief (single paragraph) research proposal that includes a synopsis of the goals of the research and specifies the need for the data contained in these sensitive data files.

Human Subjects Approval
We require evidence of approval of your planned research with PSID/CDS sensitive data by your institution’s Institutional Review Board/Human Subjects Review Committee/Privacy Board. No exempt or abbreviated review or lower standards (such as sometimes used for "secondary data analysis") will be accepted. Please inform your IRB that the provider of these data requires IRB review and approval as a condition of use in order to protect child participants in the study who provided sensitive information. Please submit your IRB approval with your application materials. Investigators are responsible for maintaining current IRB approval while their project with the sensitive data is active.

Additional requirements
  1. Any changes in work scope, study team, home institution, or IRB approval must be submitted through a revised, superseding application through the portal. Registered users will be informed if and when the Sensitive data are released into the public domain, such as when study participants reach adulthood.
  2. Investigators must agree to securely erase all sensitive data when their project ends.
  3. Researchers using PSID data should send citations based on the data to psidhelp@umich.edu.