Welcome to the Harvard Catalyst Policy Atlas!
To optimize your search using the Policy Atlas, you may use different search strategies. One approach is to start with the search categories and then type additional key terms in the search bar to narrow your findings. If you are interested in identifying all available data on your topic, it is best to use the search bar.
For additional tips, please refer to the Search Categories and Search Tips below. For other helpful information, see “FAQs”. You may also want to explore the “Use Cases, Tools & Resources” page to learn more about how other researchers have used the data to conduct their policy-relevant research.
Data Format:
Downloadable – data resource that can be downloaded in various formats (e.g., xlsx, csv, pdf, Stata/ SAS, etc.)
Visual/Interactive – visual and graphical resources linked to the data of interest, such as charts, graphs, mapping tools. They provide background information on the latest statistics or can be used as a visual analysis of national or state trends.
Text Resources – summaries, reports, fact sheets, scientific papers, data codebooks, and other text documents.
Data Type:
Policy Data refers to codified laws, regulations, and other policy-relevant data.
Supplemental Data refers to secondary data on health, mental health or behavioral indicators as well as sociodemographic characteristics and social determinants of health data.
- Using the search bar may yield more results than selecting a topic, since search will find terms in all fields including hidden keywords.
- If no results are found for your search, try using alternative or more general keywords. For example, instead of searching for “electronic nicotine delivery systems,” use other terms such as “vaping” or “e-cigarette.”
- To increase your chances of finding data on your topic, you may enter multiple keywords for the same topic. For example, “vaping+e-cigarette+ENDS+electronic cigarette.”
- Boolean search operators, such as “AND” or “OR,” are replaced by “+” or “-“. In other words, “cancer AND youth” should be typed as “cancer+youth,” and so on.
- Omit spaces when using “+” or “-“
- For any specific terms or keywords, use quotation marks ” “.