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Center for Global Democracy

 

  2. Free Access

Free Access

Free Access Beginning December 2012: We are very pleased to announce that the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) is now granting unrestricted world-wide access to the AmericasBarometer surveys (2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014). This means that users anywhere in the world may now download the SPSS and Stata country-based survey files without restriction, limitation or charge, so long as each user agrees to the terms of the current "click license." Those terms ask users to adhere to all relevant human subjects protections, and not to pass along the data to third parties (so that each user would personally agree to respect those protections).  

Free Access

If you have any questions about the free access, please contact Rubi Arana.

NOTE ABOUT SUBSCRIPTIONS:

All those who currently subscribe, as well as new subscribers, receive "premium access," which includes the following benefits:

 - Access to merged databases of which there are three types:

  • single files with data for all countries for a given survey wave.
  • single-country cross-time merged data bases.
  • Cross-time and cross national merged data including the core items from 2004 through 2014.

- Access to LAPOP-created Stata do files designed especially for use with the AmericasBarometer data in order to generate user-friendly graphs of a variety of statistical analyses.

- Access to our tech support. Those who access the data for free will not have access to our current tech support. Currently, LAPOP responds on a daily basis to countless technical questions about the database from its user community regarding such issues as sample design, data weights, question comparability, translation issues, etc.

- Permission to share files on your internal servers (so long as any such internal server user agrees to  the click license).

If you want to become a subscriber, please visit: Become a Subscriber


IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT THE DATA SETS:

Users of the LAPOP data sets should carefully read the corresponding reports and/or articles for details of the sample designs of these surveys. Each data set has a brief explanation included within it, that can be found by opening the file in any version of SPSS 13 or higher, and going to "utilities," and then to "file comments." These comments will help the user understand the nature of the sample weights, if any, and other relevant isssues.

The AmericasBarometer weighting scheme (en Español) applies to each year of the AmericasBarometer data. Users of the LAPOP data sets should carefully read the corresponding reports and/or articles for details of the sample designs of these surveys. Some of the samples are weighted, others are not. To obtain correct results, for weighted data sets, the appropriate weight variable, normally called "WT", must be applied in both SPSS or STATA. To see technical information including sample design information and core questionnaires, please go here.

To download the data sets and questionnaires, click on the links shown or right-click on the file name and save it.

The Questionnaires and Technical Information documents are saved as .pdf files which can be opened with pdf reader software available for free online such as Adobe Acrobat Reader and Foxit Reader.

Replication requests should refer to the LAPOP websites where the data can be downloaded.  Authors should provide syntax/code that allows for replication of their analyses.  Authors are not permitted to transfer LAPOP-obtained data sets to third parties, even journals, as that would violate the terms of the "click license."

Also see: How to Cite the Data

Tabulations of the data bases:
Tabulations of AmericasBarometer data sets can be found at: Online Data Analysis (Español)

About data sets prior to 2004*
You or your institution are welcome to become a data repository for any data sets prior to 2004 (these are not available with the AmericasBarometer annual subscription). As a repository, your ownership is permanent, except that you may not distribute to third parties (who need to obtain their own access). The cost per country/year is $250 for the data set in SPSS and STATA formats plus the questionnaire and technical information as .pdf files, or $300 if you also want ASCII files. You can become a repository for any of the data sets, including the AmericasBarometer series, although access to data sets prior to 2004 is only available through the data repository alternative. Please see: Become a Repository