The use of data from the following list of IRB approved public data sets is not considered human subject research as long as the following two criteria are met:
- Research will NOT involve merging any of the data sets in such a way that individuals might be identified
- Researcher will NOT enhance the public data set with identifiable, or potentially identifiable data
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
National Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (healthcare databases)
American National Election Studies
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (public data only)
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research
ICPSR Archives and Projects (click link to search for archived datasets)
NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) Public Use Datasets
The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health – public use
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
MIT Lab for Computational Physiology
MIMIC-III critical care database
National Cancer Institute
National Center for Health Statistics
National Health Interview Survey
National Survey of Children’s Health
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC)
Wave 1 (2001–2002), and Wave 2 (2004–2005)
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Motor Vehicle Occupant Safety Survey
National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health
Database of Longitudinal Studies
National Institute of Justice Data Resources Program
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
National Opinion Research Center
National Science Foundation
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
Pennsylvania State University, Department of Sociology
American Religion Data Archive
PhysioNetWorks
Sociometrics Corporation
Sociometrics Social Science Electronic Data Library
Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration
Children’s Mental Health Initiative
U.S. Department of Education
National Center for Education Statistics (public use sources only)
Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) (public use sources only)
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
University of California, Irvine
UCI Machine Learning Repository
University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research
Panel Study of Income Dynamics
University of Minnesota, History Department
Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Demography of Health and Aging
U.S. Census Bureau
return to IRB Pre-Existing Data
last update 9.29.2026