Data Availability and Access Requirements
Data collected by the RLMS is available to researchers with access restrictions as indicated in the table below. If you would like to acquire the data, please refer to the My RLMS Data page for a personalized view of your progress meeting these requirements. Subsequent sections of this page provide further details of the respective requirement.
| Type of Data |
Round(s) |
Payment |
Data Use Agreement |
IRB Approval |
Online Registration |
Online Download |
| "Free" Household & Individual*† |
1-4, 9-11 |
- |
- |
- |
Required |
Yes |
| "Paid" Household & Individual* |
5-8, 12-14 |
Required |
Required |
Required |
Required |
Yes |
| "Free" Community† |
9-11 |
- |
Required |
Required |
Required |
Yes |
| "Paid" Community |
5-8, 12-14 |
Required |
Required |
Required |
Required |
Yes |
| "Free" Sexual History† |
10 |
- |
Required |
Required, with explicit confidentiality plan |
Required |
Yes |
| "Paid" Sexual History |
12 |
Required |
Required |
Required, with explicit confidentiality plan |
Required |
Yes |
| "Free" Text Variables† |
1-4, 9-11 |
- |
Required |
Required, with explicit confidentiality plan |
Required |
- |
| "Paid" Text Variables |
5-8, 12-14 |
Required |
Required |
Required, with explicit confidentiality plan |
Required |
- |
*Household and Individual data also distributed with economic and health constructed variables.
†Data collection was partially funded by the NIH.
Payment
For those data which require payment per the table above (a.k.a., the "paid" data), the following fee structure applies:
| Rate Plan |
Description |
Amount (USD) |
| Multi-National Institutional |
Household, individual, and community data (Rounds 5-8, 12-14) for major international institutions (World Bank, UNDP, IMF, etc.) Covers all staff within for research activities pertaining to that institution. |
$50,000 |
| Institutional |
Household, individual, and community data (Rounds 5-8, 12-14) for universities, companies and very large research centers. Covers all staff within for research activities pertaining to that institution. |
$25,000 |
| Research Team |
Household, individual, and community data (Rounds 5-8, 12-14) for research team at one center or institution |
$10,000 |
| Student |
Household, individual, and community data (Rounds 5-8, 12-14) for graduate students (i.e., doctoral and masters' students working alone) |
$2,000 (NOTE: scholarships available selectively for students in Russia if there are no resources) |
| Sexual History |
Sexual history data (Round 12). This fee is in addition to that required for other types of data. |
$2,000 |
| Text Variables |
Text variables data (Rounds 5-8, 12-14). This fee is in addition to that required for other types of data. |
$10,000 |
Please note that you will only be prompted for payment after your Data Use Agreement has been received and approved by RLMS staff. This is to ensure you are charged the appropriate amount (e.g., you may be covered under an institutional rate plan).
The RLMS can accept credit card (VISA and/or MasterCard) and check (USD only) as valid methods of payments.
Data Use Agreement
The Data Use Agreement document must be signed by the indicated parties and mailed to the RLMS per the included instructions.
IRB Approval
Approval from your local institutional review board (IRB) must be provided (and renewed) according to the instructions found in the RLMS Data Use Agreement document.
Online Registration
In order to make credit card payment and/or download the data, you must register with the RLMS project. This involves creating a personal user account on the www.cpc.unc.edu server with which you may login.
Online Download
Data for which you qualify is available for immediate download on the Data Downloads page. Please note that the individual dataset files are in SAS XPORT format and are zipped together into a single zip file per round per type of data.
The text variables data sets are not available via download and you will instead be mailed a custom CD-ROM with those rounds and variables indicated in your Data Use Agreement.