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The Detroit Area Study (DAS), conducted from 1951 to 2004, was a graduate training program in survey methods at the University of Michigan. Students conducted an annual survey in the Detroit Metropolitan Area (Oakland, Wayne, and Macomb counties), with a different research focus each year. Common topics included community life in an urban environment, family, politics, and race relations. The records consist of proposals, questionnaires, and analyses of the surveys.

The Detroit Area Study (DAS) records document a decades long survey research project focused on the Detroit metropolitan area. The records include administrative files documenting the development, funding and management of the project, publicity materials, photographs, publications produced by DAS staff or by others using DAS generated data, questionnaires and sampling reports the records are organized into four series: Administrative Files, Proposals, Questionnaires, and Sampling Reports.

Professor of sociology and director of the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, Ronald Freedman's research interests centered on population structure and social change. Freedman's papers consist of documentation from two large-scale survey analysis projects he was involved with, including survey questionnaires, data, and reports from Taiwan Population Studies, and Detroit Area Studies.

This collection documents only a fragment of Ronald Freedman's 40-year career as a teacher and a scholar at the University of Michigan. It contains materials related to two of his most notable studies, fertility practice and attitudes in Taiwan, and family growth in the Detroit area. The collection is divided into three series: Taiwan Population Studies: Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice (KAP), Taiwan Population Studies Working Papers, and Detroit Area Studies.