ACF Data

Interoperability and Data Sharing

ACF collects a wide range of data from grant recipients, including states, tribes, localities, and other partners, which are used to manage programs, build evidence, and conduct research to inform human services policy and program design. ACF has long relied on these data sources to better understand and evaluate its program operations and outcomes. Providing the public and research community with greater visibility into what ACF data are available for secondary analysis and where they may be accessed can lead to enhancing our collective understanding about how to improve outcomes for children and families.

Please visit data pages maintained by ACF Program Offices for more information about available data resources, including data reports such as annual statistical reports, reports to Congress, and online tabular data.

Additionally, OPRE regularly archives research and evaluation data for secondary analysis, consistent with the ACF evaluation policy, which promotes rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and ethics in the conduct of evaluation and research. One practice that OPRE implements to support these principles is the responsible archiving of data for secondary analysis. Archiving evaluation data for appropriate secondary use by researchers promotes rigor and transparency by encouraging the external validation and reproducibility of published results or findings.

Point of Contact: datagov@acf.hhs.gov

Featured Resources

Projects on this Topic

This webpage serves as a resource center for links to data pages in ACF program offices, data reports pages (e.g., annual statistical reports, reports to Congress, online tabular data), and ACF data catalogs and archives (e.g., national surveys, administrative data, evaluation data).

The Child and Family Data Archive (CFData) is the place to discover, access, and analyze data on young children, their families and communities, and the programs that serve them. OPRE funds numerous data collection efforts through research studies on a wide range of early care and education (ECE) topics within and across child care, Head Start, and home visiting.

Learn about a project developing privacy guidance on how organizations can securely share data to enhance services that promote the well-being of children and families.

OPRE regularly archives research and evaluation data for secondary analysis, consistent with the ACF evaluation policy, which promotes rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and ethics in the conduct of evaluation and research. One practice that OPRE implements to support these principles is the responsible archiving of data for secondary analysis. Archiving evaluation data for appropriate secondary use by researchers promotes rigor and transparency by encouraging the external validation and reproducibility of published results or findings.

Project Overview

The purpose of this project is to develop recommendations and strategies that ACF can pursue to increase data accessibility...