Using SAMHDA
- Overview
- Terms, formats, and statistical vocabulary
- Searching and finding the data you need
- Accessing data
- Downloading data
- Analyzing data using statistical software
- Online data analysis using SDA
- Producing Quick Tables
- More information
Searching and finding the data you need
If you do not already know which study you are interested in, then you might want to explore one of the available search features on the SAMHDA Web site. One way to locate a particular study archived by SAMHDA is to Browse All Studies. This feature provides a directory of all our holdings with links to a Description page for each study or study series respectively. From the description pages, you may choose to:
- browse documentation
- download data
- analyze & subset data online, including using Quick Tables
- view related literature
Another way to find data sets or variables of interest is to use the search form that appears at the top of each SAMHDA page. There are three ways to search SAMHDA holdings using the Search utility:
- The Variables search option searches question text, value labels, and variable labels for every variable in all the studies currently available on Survey Documentation and Analysis. This is the default setting for the search utility.
- The Study Descriptions search option searches for keywords or phrases within the descriptions of all the studies in SAMHDA's holdings.
- The Web Site search option searches for keywords or phrases on the SAMHDA Web site.
For additional information on finding data, we encourage you to consult our How to Find Data help documentation.
Example 1 below shows the results of a variable level search on the keyword "heroin."
Studies that appear on the variable-level search results page will include one or more of the following links:
- The List Matching Variables link will take you to a page that lists all the variables that match the search parameters. Additional information on this feature can be found in the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) report titled: Finding Specific Variables in the NHSDA.
- The Study Description link will take you to the corresponding study description (e.g., 2006 NSDUH), which gives a useful summary of the data contents, scope, time period, and other details that will help you to determine the relevance of a dataset for your research.
- The Online Analysis link is only present for studies that have online analysis (i.e., SDA) components, and will take you to a page that lists the available online analysis components related to that particular study.
- The Browse & Download link will take you to the corresponding browse documentation page, which allows you to view/download the documentation files (codebooks, questionnaires).
Example 1: Variable-Level Search Results Screen for Keyword "heroin"
Example 2 below shows the results of a study description search on the keyword "methamphetamine."
Studies that appear on the study descriptions Search Results page will include one or more of the following links:
- The Description link will take you to the corresponding study description (e.g., 2006 NSDUH), which gives a useful summary of the data contents, scope, time period, study citation, and other details that will help you to determine the relevance of a data set for your research.
- The Download link takes you to a screen that walks you through a series of steps to download the data and documentation files for the selected study.
- The Online Analysis link is only present for studies that have online analysis components, and will take you to a page that lists the available online analysis components related to that particular study.
- The Related Literature link will return a list of bibliographic citations for publications based upon the data.
Example 2: Study Descriptions Search Results Screen for Keyword "methamphetamine"
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