2021.04.14 edition
Global abortion rates. The Guttmacher Institute’s new Global Abortion Incidence Dataset gathers annual abortion statistics for more than 100 countries — for as many years between 1990 and 2018 as possible. The dataset also indicates the sources for the figures, “whether spontaneous abortions are included, whether or not the data are considered complete and the reason behind it, the marital status of the sample for studies and surveys,” and more. Previously: Pregnancies, births, and abortions by US state and age group (DIP 2020.10.28), also from Guttmacher. [h/t Cynthia Beavin]
Central banks vs. the pandemic. Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements (DIP 2020.08.12) have compiled a dataset of central banks’ policy responses to the coronavirus pandemic. It covers more than 900 announcements by 39 central banks, grouped by monetary tool: interest rates, reserve policies, lending operations, foreign exchange, and asset purchases. The researchers also “provide further details relevant to each type of tool, such as the maturity and whether the instrument was new to the central bank or not.” [h/t Carlos Cantú]
The pandemic vs. US households. The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey “is a 20-minute online survey studying how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting households across the country from a social and economic perspective,” and asks questions about food security, housing, telework, and more. It has collected more than 2 million responses since last April, with results published on a rolling basis via microdata files, statistical tables, and interactive graphics. Related: The Urban Institute has been collating and standardizing the data files. [h/t Michael Allen + Eric Gardner]
News homepages. Since January 2019, software engineer Nick Jones has been capturing hourly screenshots of five news sites’ homepages: The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and CNN. You can browse the images online and download them from predictable URLs. Note: “This project is unaffiliated with PastPages, a similar effort that took screenshots from 2012 to 2018 from a much wider range of news websites.”
Rainforest soundscapes. As part of its “efforts to better understand the ecology of forest elephant movements, and the spatial and temporal pattern of poaching,” the Elephant Listening Project has been collecting audio 24/7 from 50 locations in the Republic of the Congo and publishing the raw recordings — ”more than 1 million hours of the sounds of birds, primates, insects, frogs, you name it. If it makes sound, we record it.”