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The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS, formerly known as the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study) follows a cohort of nearly 5,000 children born in large, U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000. The study oversampled births to unmarried couples; and, when weighted, the data are representative of births in large U.S. cities at the turn of the century. The FFCWS was originally designed to address four questions of great interest to researchers and policy makers:

1. What are the conditions and capabilities of unmarried parents, especially fathers?
2. What is the nature of the relationships between unmarried parents?
3. How do children born into these families fare?
4. How do policies and environmental conditions affect families and children?

The FFCWS consists of interviews with mothers, fathers, and/or primary caregivers at birth and again when children are ages 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, and 22. The parent interviews collected information on attitudes, relationships, parenting behavior, demographic characteristics, health (mental and physical), economic and employment status, neighborhood characteristics, and program participation. Beginning at age 9, children were interviewed directly (either during the home visit or on the telephone). The direct child interviews collected data on family relationships, home routines, schools, peers, and physical and mental health, as well as health behaviors.

A collaborative study of the FFCWS, the In-Home Longitudinal Study of Pre-School Aged Children (In-Home Study) collected data from a subset of the FFCWS Core respondents at the Year 3 and 5 follow-ups to ask how parental resources in the form of parental presence or absence, time, and money influence children under the age of 5. The In-Home Study collected information on a variety of domains of the child's environment, including: the physical environment (quality of housing, nutrition and food security, health care, adequacy of clothing and supervision) and parenting (parental discipline, parental attachment, and cognitive stimulation). In addition, the In-Home Study also collected information on several important child outcomes, including anthropometrics, child behaviors, and cognitive ability. This information was collected through interviews with the child's primary caregiver, and direct observation of the child's home environment and the child's interactions with his or her caregiver.

Similar activities were conducted during the Year 9 follow-up. At the Year 15 follow-up, a condensed set of home visit activities were conducted with a subsample of approximately 1,000 teens. Teens who participated in the In-Home Study were also invited to participate in a Sleep Study and were asked to wear an accelerometer on their non-dominant wrist for seven consecutive days to track their sleep (Sleep Actigraphy Data) and that day's behaviors and mood (Daily Sleep Actigraphy and Diary Survey Data).

An additional collaborative study collected data from the child care provider (Year 3) and teacher (Years 9 and 15) through mail-based surveys. Saliva samples were collected at Year 9 and 15 (Biomarker file and Polygenic Scores). The Study of Adolescent Neural Development (SAND) COVID Study began data collection in May 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It included online surveys with the young adult and their primary caregiver.

The FFCWS began its seventh wave of data collection in October 2020, around the focal child's 22nd birthday. Data collection and interviews continued through January 2024. The Year 22 wave included a young adult (YA) survey with the original focal child and a primary caregiver (PCG) survey. Data were also collected on the children of the original focal child (referred to as Generation 3, or G3).

In 2017, the FFCWS team announced the Fragile Families (FF) Challenge, a collaborative effort in which participants were tasked with using machine learning methods and FFCWS data (Baseline to Year 9) to build a model that would predict six key outcomes at Year 15. Materials used in the FF Challenge have been archived in this collection.

Documentation for these files is available on the FFCWS website under Data and Documentation. For details of updates made to the FFCWS data files, please see the project's Data Alerts page.

Data collection for the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers R01HD36916, R01HD39135, and R01HD40421, as well as a consortium of private foundations.

Below is the citation for use of the FFCWS data accessed through ICPSR. For information on additional citation requirements when using FFCWS in publications, please refer to this FAQ on the FFCWS project site.

The current collection includes data collected as part of a planned evaluation of New York City's proposed soda portion cap policy. Baseline data collection was conducted in three waves. Wave 1 began in early January 2013 and ended in April 2013; Wave 2 was conducted from August to November 2013; and Wave 3 was conducted between January and June 2014.

Data was collected at point-of-purchase on the availability, sizing, promotion, and cost of beverages in the fast food restaurants of New York City, New York and of Newark and Jersey City in New Jersey. This data was also collected in these areas for their nearest convenience stores/bodegas and supermarkets. Consumer receipts were also gathered to supplement this survey data. Additional data collection was conducted using environmental scans of fast food and grocery store locations to evaluate the healthfulness of the beverage environment. Lastly, some participants also completed a telephone interview where data was gathered on participant's dietary recall.

These data are intended to gather a fuller picture of the factors that may influence beverage purchases.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigators if further information is needed.

This study is a secondary analysis (syntax only, no data) of Research on Pathways to Desistance [Maricopa County, AZ and Philadelphia County, PA]: Subject Measures, 2000-2010 (ICPSR 29961) and Research on Pathways to Desistance [Maricopa County, AZ and Philadelphia County, PA]: Calendar Data, 2000-2010 [Restricted] (ICPSR 32282).

The purpose of this study was to further existing knowledge of juvenile justice intervention and how juvenile justice intervention is related to positive outcomes during the transition to adulthood. This study examines three main aims using data from the Pathways to Desistance study, which followed a sample of serious adolescent offenders for seven years to examine the desistance process. First, trajectories of secure institutional placement for serious offenders during the study period were identified. Second, trajectories of gainful activities for serious adolescent offenders during the study period were identified. Gainful activities were defined as working or attending school. Third, factors associated with turning points in the gainful activities trajectories were explored. In the course of estimating the gainful activities trajectories, there appeared to be a key moment, around year 3, where multiple trajectories with moderate levels of engagement in gainful activities diverged. Together, these three aims will inform how juvenile justice intervention is related to positive outcomes during the transition to adulthood and identify factors that may be related to positive outcomes and critical turning points in the trajectories of serious adolescent offenders.

Group differences were examined by testing bivariate differences in a broad range of variables: demographic variables (gender, age, and race/ethnicity); study site and year of interview; characteristics of prior service receipt at baseline (location and orientation); school, family and neighborhood characteristics; characteristics of the offense and offense history; individual factors (mental health and substance use symptoms); and risk scores.

The Multicity Study of the Impact of Taxes on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages was a multi-year study intended to provide comprehensive information about the impacts of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes on retail prices, purchases, and consumption. The study was conducted in two cities that recently implemented an excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages: Philadelphia, PA and Oakland, CA.

The study consists of six datasets, with three datasets covering Philadelphia and three covering Oakland. The store observation data contain price information for sodas, juices, and other beverages. The purchase datasets contain information from survey questions fielded at stores, including basic demographic information (race and ethnicity, gender, income), the number of people in the participant's household, and how often they shop for beverages at that store and others. The household datasets contain information from survey questions fielded during the household beverages consumption survey; it includes demographic information and beverage consumption information for a household adult and a household child.

The study also included an analysis of strategic responses to the taxes, including cross-border shopping by consumers, and retailers changing the availability of various beverages.

The National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A) was designed to estimate the lifetime-to-date and current prevalence, age-of-onset distributions, course, and comorbidity of DSM-IV disorders in the child and adolescent years of life among adolescents in the United States; to identify risk and protective factors for the onset and persistence of these disorders; to describe patterns and correlates of service use for these disorders; and to lay the groundwork for subsequent follow-up studies that can be used to identify early expressions of adult mental disorders.

The core NCS-A interview schedule was an adaptation of the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). NCS-A also administered the non-verbal subtest (Matrices subtest) of the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT).

In addition to interviewing adolescents, information was collected from a parent or a parent surrogate to obtain an additional perspective on the adolescent's mental health and its correlates. Information from parents focused on the five adolescent disorders for which previous methodological research has most consistently shown that parental reports are important for making diagnoses: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, major depressive episode, and dysthymic disorder.

Demographic information collected by NCS-A includes age, citizenship status, country of birth, criminal history, ethnicity, grandparents' country of birth, language(s) spoken in the home, parents' country of birth, race, religion, and sex.

The data collection contains six data files: (1) data for the adolescent household and school respondents; (2) data for the parents who responded to the long self-administered questionnaire; (3) data for the parents who responded to both the long self-administered questionnaire and short telephone interview; (4) diagnostic variables derived from the data collected from the adolescents and parents; (5) K-BIT scores normed to the NCS-A adolescent sample; and (6) raw K-BIT data.

The NCS-2 was a re-interview of 5,001 individuals who participated in the Baseline (NCS-1). The study was conducted a decade after the initial baseline survey. The aim was to collect information about changes in mental disorders, substance use disorders, and the predictors and consequences of these changes over the ten years between the two surveys. The collection contains three major sections: the main survey, demographic data, and diagnostic data.

In the main survey, respondents were asked about general physical and mental health. Questions focused on a variety of health issues, including limitations caused by respondents' health issues, substance use, childhood health, life-threatening illnesses, chronic conditions, medications taken in the past 12 months, level of functioning and symptoms experienced in the past 30 days, and any services used by the respondents since the (NCS-1). Additional questions focused on mental disorders including depression, bipolar disorder, specific and social phobias, generalized anxiety, intermittent explosive disorder, suicidality, post-traumatic stress disorder, neurasthenia, pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and separation anxiety. Respondents were also asked about their lives in general, with topics including employment, finances, marriage, children, their social lives, and stressful life events experienced in the past 12 months. Additionally, two personality assessments were included consisting of respondents' opinions on whether various true/false statements accurately described their personalities. Another focus of the main survey dealt with substance use and abuse, nonmedical use of prescription drugs, and polysubstance use. Interview questions in the NCS-2 Main Survey were customized to each respondent based on previous responses in the Baseline (NCS-1).

The middle section contains demographic and other background information including age, education, employment, household composition, household income, marital status, and region.

The last section of the collection focused on whether respondents met diagnostic criteria for psychological disorders asked about in the main survey.

The NCS-2 was a re-interview of 5,001 individuals who participated in the Baseline (NCS-1). The study was conducted a decade after the initial baseline survey. The aim was to collect information about changes in mental disorders, substance use disorders, and the predictors and consequences of these changes over the ten years between the two surveys. The collection contains four major sections: the main survey, demographic data, diagnostic data, and state, county, and tract FIPS data.

In the main survey, respondents were asked about general physical and mental health. Questions focused on a variety of health issues, including limitations caused by respondents' health issues, substance use, childhood health, life-threatening illnesses, chronic conditions, medications taken in the past 12 months, level of functioning and symptoms experienced in the past 30 days, and any services used by the respondents since the (NCS-1). Additional questions focused on mental disorders including depression, bipolar disorder, specific and social phobias, generalized anxiety, intermittent explosive disorder, suicidality, post-traumatic stress disorder, neurasthenia, pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and separation anxiety. Respondents were also asked about their lives in general, with topics including employment, finances, marriage, children, their social lives, and stressful life events experienced in the past 12 months. Additionally, two personality assessments were included consisting of respondents' opinions on whether various true/false statements accurately described their personalities. Another focus of the main survey dealt with substance use and abuse, nonmedical use of prescription drugs, and polysubstance use. Interview questions in the NCS-2 Main Survey were customized to each respondent based on previous responses in the Baseline (NCS-1).

The second part contains demographic and other background information including age, education, employment, household composition, household income, marital status, and region.

The third part focuses on whether respondents met diagnostic criteria for psychological disorders asked about in the main survey.

The fourth part contains respondents' state, county, and tract FIPS data.

This study was one of three modules in a larger study designed to define, identify, and disseminate information about best practice physical activity programming in community-based organizations. The National Council on the Aging (NCOA), together with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), conducted Module 1, a national competition for NCOA Awards for Excellence in Physical Activity Programming. The purpose of the competition was to bring national attention to best practice in physical activity programming operated by local public or non-profit organizations that serve older adults. NCOA was assisted in this endeavor by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the Healthy Aging Research Network of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Prevention Research Centers, and a variety of nationally known physical activity experts. Module 2 was a census of physical activity programs for older adults that was conducted in seven locations by Healthy Aging Research Network. Module 3 was this National Impact Study, a study of best practice programming at three community-based organizations serving older adults. It was designed to answer the research question, "Do best practice physical activity programs provided by community-based organizations have a measurable impact on the health and well being of participants?" The three studied organizations were among the ten winners of the best practice competition.

Data were collected from previously sedentary, volunteer participants from each of the three organizations. The goal was to enroll 250 older adults at each site for a total of 750 subjects across the three programs. At each site, one half of all subjects (n = 125) were to be assigned to the treatment group and the other half to a control group. Subjects in the treatment group participated in the best practice program classes while the control group could enroll in other exercise classes but not the best practice program classes. The subjects were to be interviewed three times: baseline, three months, and nine months. Each interview contained two parts: (1) the administration of health and exercise related questions and (2) the administration of four physical fitness tests that assessed the respondent's strength, flexibility and aerobic endurance. Background information collected by the survey includes age, education, employment status, marital status, income, race, and Hispanic origin.

In 2008, a group of uninsured low-income adults in Oregon was selected by lottery to be given the chance to apply for Medicaid. This lottery provides an opportunity to gauge the effects of expanding access to public health insurance on the health care use, financial strain, and health of low-income adults using a randomized controlled design. The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment follows and compares those selected in the lottery (treatment group) with those not selected (control group). The data collected and provided here include data from in-person interviews, three mail surveys, emergency department records, and administrative records on Medicaid enrollment, the initial lottery sign-up list, welfare benefits, and mortality.

This data collection has seven data files:

Dataset 1 contains administrative data on the lottery from the state of Oregon. These data include demographic characteristics that were recorded when individuals signed up for the lottery, date of lottery draw, and information on who was selected for the lottery, applied for the lotteried Medicaid plan if selected, and whose application for the lotteried plan was approved. Also included are Oregon mortality data for 2008 and 2009.

Dataset 2 contains information from the state of Oregon on the individuals' participation in Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

Datasets 3-5 contain the data from the initial, six month, and 12 month mail surveys, respectively. Topics covered by the surveys include demographic characteristics; health insurance, access to health care and health care utilization; health care needs, experiences, and costs; overall health status and changes in health; and depression and medical conditions and use of medications to treat them.

Dataset 6 contains an analysis subset of the variables from the in-person interviews. Topics covered by the survey questionnaire include overall health, health insurance coverage, health care access, health care utilization, conditions and treatments, health behaviors, medical and dental costs, and demographic characteristics. The interviewers also obtained blood pressure and anthropometric measurements and collected dried blood spots to measure levels of cholesterol, glycated hemoglobin and C-reactive protein.

Dataset 7 contains an analysis subset of the variables the study obtained for all emergency department (ED) visits to twelve hospitals in the Portland area during 2007-2009. These variables capture total hospital costs, ED costs, and the number of ED visits categorized by time of the visit (daytime weekday or nighttime and weekends), necessity of the visit (emergent, ED care needed, non-preventable; emergent, ED care needed, preventable; emergent, primary care treatable), ambulatory case sensitive status, whether or not the patient was hospitalized, and the reason for the visit (e.g., injury, abdominal pain, chest pain, headache, and mental disorders).

The collection also includes a ZIP archive (Dataset 8) with Stata programs that replicate analyses reported in three articles by the principal investigators and others:

Finkelstein, Amy et al "The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. August 2012. Vol 127(3).

Baicker, Katherine et al "The Oregon Experiment - Effects of Medicaid on Clinical Outcomes". New England Journal of Medicine. 2 May 2013. Vol 368(18).

Taubman, Sarah et al "Medicaid Increases Emergency Department Use: Evidence from Oregon's Health Insurance Experiment". Science. 2 Jan 2014.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700) from 2000 through 2010.

This study looks at interviews conducted with the collateral informants who participated in the study. The collateral informants were nominated by the main study participant and represented individuals who "knew the study participant well". At the interview baseline the collateral informant was usually a biological parent. During the three follow-up interviews the majority of collaterals were a friend. Collateral informants could also be a sibling, significant other, or relative. Collaterals were asked questions in regards to the main study participant's life, allowing for comparison between responses provided by two sources. A baseline interview was conducted with the collateral after the baseline interview took place with the main participant. Additional waves of follow-up with collaterals took place at 12, 24, and 36 months. A collateral report is not present for all of the main study participant interviews across waves (see response rate below).

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

This study looks at interviews conducted with the collateral informants who participated in the study. The collateral informants were nominated by the main study participant and represented individuals who "knew the study participant well". At the interview baseline the collateral informant was usually a biological parent. During the three follow-up interviews the majority of collaterals were a friend. Collateral informants could also be a sibling, significant other, or relative. Collaterals were asked questions in regards to the main study participant's life, allowing for comparison between responses provided by two sources. A baseline interview was conducted with the collateral after the baseline interview took place with the main participant. Additional waves of follow-up with collaterals took place at 12, 24, and 36 months. A collateral report is not present for all of the main study participant interviews across waves (see response rate below).

The current Collateral Measures study primarily consists of the calculated scores from constructs asked about during the interview, but the individual scale items were withheld at that time. These additional datasets contain those individual items plus the calculated scores. These variables are typically consistent across the waves that the scale was asked about during the course of the entire project. Most of the files contain variables from all four waves of data collection. The table in the front of the User Guide will list which waves are present in each data file.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

The Release data portion of the Pathways study contains information from 1,130 interviews ("release interviews") reflecting the youths' perceptions regarding various aspects of the residential experience and institutional environment (e.g., accounts of program operations and services provided, ratings regarding the participant's feelings of his or her safety in the facility). The release interview was conducted within 30 days prior to or after release from a facility and in a separate session apart from the time point interview. This was done to minimize the burden on the research participant and to ensure adequate attention to institutional ratings. The restricted time period within which to conduct the release interview reduced the likelihood that intervening events and experiences would skew the participant's recall of the stay.

Study participants could contribute more than one release interview, depending upon the number of institutional placements he/she had over the seven-year follow-up period. The current release data reflects ratings from 686 unique individuals. It should be recognized that not every institutional stay for every youth produced a release interview. On the basis of the number of reported institutional stays in the sample, it is estimated that a release interview was obtained for approximately 54 percent of the total number of residential stays experienced by study participants. Release interviews were missed if the research interviewer was not aware of the institutional stay (e.g. it occurred between time point interviews) or if the interviewer only became aware of the institutional stay at a point that was too late to schedule a release interview within the required window surrounding the release date.

The 686 individuals reflected in the release data represent 51 percent of the Pathway study participants (n=1,354) and 56 percent of Pathways participants who had a least one institutional stay (n=1,234; 120 Pathways youths had no institutional stays). On average, these 686 youths had 1.6 interviews. The number of interviews per unique person ranges from one to eight.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

The Release data portion of the Pathways study contains information from 1,130 interviews ("release interviews") reflecting the youths' perceptions regarding various aspects of the residential experience and institutional environment (e.g., accounts of program operations and services provided, ratings regarding the participant's feelings of his or her safety in the facility). The release interview was conducted within 30 days prior to or after release from a facility and in a separate session apart from the time point interview. This was done to minimize the burden on the research participant and to ensure adequate attention to institutional ratings. The restricted time period within which to conduct the release interview reduced the likelihood that intervening events and experiences would skew the participant's recall of the stay.

Study participants could contribute more than one release interview, depending upon the number of institutional placements he/she had over the seven-year follow-up period. The current release data reflects ratings from 686 unique individuals. It should be recognized that not every institutional stay for every youth produced a release interview. On the basis of the number of reported institutional stays in the sample, it is estimated that a release interview was obtained for approximately 54 percent of the total number of residential stays experienced by study participants. Release interviews were missed if the research interviewer was not aware of the institutional stay (e.g. it occurred between time point interviews) or if the interviewer only became aware of the institutional stay at a point that was too late to schedule a release interview within the required window surrounding the release date.

The 686 individuals reflected in the release data represent 51 percent of the Pathway study participants (n=1,354) and 56 percent of Pathways participants who had a least one institutional stay (n=1,234; 120 Pathways youths had no institutional stays). On average, these 686 youths had 1.6 interviews. The number of interviews per unique person ranges from one to eight.

The current Release Measures study primarily consists of the calculated scores from constructs asked about during the interviews, but the individual scale items were withheld at that time. This study contains those individual items plus the calculated scores.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

Respondents were enrolled and baseline interviews conducted from November 2000 to January 2003. Follow-up interviews were then scheduled with the respondents at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60, 72 and 84 months past their baseline interview.

The enrolled youth were at least 14 years old and under 18 years old at the time of their committing offense and were found guilty of a serious offense (predominantly felonies, with a few exceptions for some misdemeanor property offenses, sexual assault, or weapons offenses).

The baseline interview was conducted within 75 days of the youth's adjudication hearing. For youths in the adult system, the baseline interview was conducted within 90 days of either (a) the decertification hearing in Philadelphia, a hearing at which it is determined if the case will remain in adult court or if it will be sent back to juvenile court; or (b) the adult arraignment hearing in Phoenix, the point in the Arizona adult system at which charges have been formally presented.

The aims of the investigation were to identify initial patterns of how serious adolescent offenders stop antisocial activity, to describe the role of social context and developmental changes in promoting these positive changes, and to compare the effects of sanctions and interventions in promoting these changes. The larger goals of the Pathways to Desistance study were to improve decision-making by court and social service personnel and to clarify policy debates about alternatives for serious adolescent offenders. The study relied primarily on self-report information from study participants.

Each wave of data collection covered six domains: (1) background characteristics (e.g., demographics, academic achievement, psychiatric diagnoses, offense history, neurological functioning, psychopathy, personality), (2) indicators of individual functioning (e.g., work and school status and performance, substance abuse, mental disorder, antisocial behavior), (3) psychosocial development and attitudes (e.g., impulse control, susceptibility to peer influence, perceptions of opportunity, perceptions of procedural justice, moral disengagement), (4) family context (e.g., household composition, quality of family relationships), (5) personal relationships (e.g., quality of romantic relationships and friendships, peer delinquency, contacts with caring adults), and (6) community context (e.g., neighborhood conditions, personal capital, and community involvement). Information about the measures used to capture this information can be found on the Pathways to Desistance website.

The Pathways to Desistance study was a multi-site study that followed 1,354 serious juvenile offenders from adolescence to young adulthood in two locales between the years 2000 and 2010. Enrolled into the study were adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700).

Respondents were enrolled and baseline interviews conducted from November 2000 to January 2003. Follow-up interviews were then scheduled with the respondents at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60, 72 and 84 months past their baseline interview.

The enrolled youth were at least 14 years old and under 18 years old at the time of their committing offense and were found guilty of a serious offense (predominantly felonies, with a few exceptions for some misdemeanor property offenses, sexual assault, or weapons offenses).

Each wave of data collection covered six domains: (1) background characteristics (e.g., demographics, academic achievement, psychiatric diagnoses, offense history, neurological functioning, psychopathy, personality), (2) indicators of individual functioning (e.g., work and school status and performance, substance abuse, mental disorder, antisocial behavior), (3) psychosocial development and attitudes (e.g., impulse control, susceptibility to peer influence, perceptions of opportunity, perceptions of procedural justice, moral disengagement), (4) family context (e.g., household composition, quality of family relationships), (5) personal relationships (e.g., quality of romantic relationships and friendships, peer delinquency, contacts with caring adults), and (6) community context (e.g., neighborhood conditions, personal capital, and community involvement). Information about the measures used to capture this information can be found on the Pathways to Desistance website.

The current Subject Measures study primarily consists of the calculated scores from constructs asked about during the interview, but the individual scale items were withheld at that time. These variables are typically consistent across the waves that the scale was asked about during the course of the entire study. Most of the files contain variables from all 11 waves of data collection. The table in the front of the User Guide will list which waves are present in each data file.