Data Is Plural

... is a weekly newsletter of useful/curious datasets.

2022.03.23 edition

HealthCare.gov plans, political apologies, border changes, PISA results and responses, and born-digital artworks.

HealthCare.gov plans. A series of datasets from the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services describes all the plans available through the government’s health insurance marketplace. The information resembles that available through HealthCare.gov, but is provided as structured, downloadable files. The datasets describe the costs, benefits, networks, service areas, and other aspects of 27,000+ plans offered by hundreds insurers in 2022, plus similar data for each year since 2014. [h/t Qiang Liu et al. + Kevin Lewis]

Political apologies. The Political Apologies Database, part of a broader research project on the theme, is “an inventory of political apologies offered by states or state representatives to a collective for human rights violations that happened in the recent or distant past.” The current version describes 300+ apologies offered between 1947 and 2021, indicating the countries and officials who offered them, the countries and groups that received them, classifications of the apologized-for violations, and other context. Read more: “Examining the ‘age of apology,’” a study summarizing the researchers’ findings. [h/t Erik Gahner Larsen]

Border changes. The CShapes 2.0 dataset “maps the borders and capitals of independent states and dependent territories from 1886 to 2019,” and includes the specific dates of each change. It’s available in a range of formats and as an interactive graphic. Read more: Guy Schvitz et al. describe the dataset’s creation and how it compares to others. Related: Steven V. Miller’s Territorial Change dataset, which “records all peaceful and violent changes of territory from 1816-2018.” [h/t Mojmír Polák + Scott F. Abramson et al.]

PISA results and responses. Through tests and questionnaires, the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment examines the math, science, and reading proficiency, learning environments, and attitudes of hundreds of thousands 15-year-olds in dozens of countries around the world. Its public datasets include students’ results and responses from seven assessment waves, dating from 2000 to 2018. As seen in: “Sex differences in adolescents’ occupational aspirations: Variations across time and place,” a study using 2018 PISA data. [h/t Xan Gregg]

Born-digital artworks. In 1999, the new-media-art nonprofit Rhizome launched ArtBase, “an archive of born-digital artworks.” Last year, it relaunched the project as a linked data resource, allowing you run complex and detailed queries across the collection’s 2,200+ entries.