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The Americans' Changing Lives (ACL) survey series is an ongoing, nationally representative, longitudinal study focusing especially on differences between Black and White Americans in middle and late life. These data constitute the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth waves in a panel survey covering a wide range of sociological, psychological, mental, and physical health items. Wave I of the study began in 1986 with a nation face-to-face survey of 3,617 adults ages 25 and up, with Black Americans and people aged 60 and over over-sampled at twice the rate of the others. Wave II constitutes face-to-face re-interviews in 1989 of those still alive. Survivors have been re-interviewed by telephone, and when necessary face-to-face, in 1994 (Wave III), 2001/02 (Wave IV), 2011 (Wave V), and 2019/21 (Wave VI).

Please note that for Wave VI, the majority of data collection occurred in 2019, with only a small subset (n=39) of participants surveyed in 2021.

ACL was designed and sought to investigate the following: (1) The ways in which a wide range of activities and social relationships that people engage in are broadly "productive," (2) how individuals adapt to acute life events and chronic stresses that threaten the maintenance of health, effective functioning, and productive activity, and (3) sociocultural variations in the nature, meaning, determinants, and consequences of productive activity and relationships. Among the topics covered are interpersonal relationships (spouse/partner, children, parents, friends), sources and levels of satisfaction, social interactions and leisure activities, traumatic life events (physical assault, serious illness, divorce, death of a loved one, financial or legal problems), perceptions of retirement, health behaviors (smoking, alcohol consumption, overweight, rest), and utilization of health care services (doctor visits, hospitalization, nursing home institutionalization, bed days). Also included are measures of physical health, psychological well-being, and indices referring to cognitive functioning.

Demographic information provided for individuals includes household composition, number of children and grandchildren, employment status, occupation and work history, income, family financial situation, religious beliefs and practices, ethnicity, race, education, sex, and region of residence.

The purpose of this survey was to obtain information on the characteristics and practice patterns of early career physicians in order to analyze trends in physicians' activities and the supply of physicians. To that end, the survey interviewed early career physicians and re-interviewed physicians who participated in the previous survey of early career physicians PRACTICE PATTERNS OF YOUNG PHYSICIANS, 1987 (ICPSR 9277). With separate samples drawn for allopathic and osteopathic physicians, the respondents were interviewed about their medical training, medical education financing, career choices and satisfaction, practice arrangements and compensation, and patient care activities. They were also questioned about medical care management in their practice(s), perceptions of their freedom to deliver care, medical malpractice claims, and the composition of their patients, such as the percent who were poor, black, Hispanic, uninsured, covered by Medicaid or Medicare, or had severe physical disabilities, chronic mental illness, or problems with substance abuse. Demographic characteristics covered by the survey include race, Hispanic origin, year of birth, marital status, number and ages of children, and parents' education.

In addition to the variables collected by survey, the allopath sample data also comprise variables obtained from the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Student and Applicant Information Management System (SAIMS) of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The AMA variables include gender, name of medical school, board certification status, physician's specialty, and AMA membership, while the SAIMS variables include dates of application to medical school, graduation dates, Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores, undergraduate grade-point averages, religious preference, career preference, preferred practice setting, educational debt, scholarship information, and participation in courses/clerkships in different subject areas.

The study comprises five data files. Dataset 1 contains the public-use version of the data for the allopath sample and Dataset 2 the public-use version of the data data for the osteopath sample. Both of these files were generated by ICPSR from the original restricted-use allopath and osteopath data files provided by the principal investigator, which are stored as Datasets 3 and 4 respectively. As noted in the ICPSR Processing Note in the codebook, Dataset 5 contains 26 restricted variables which the principal investigator omitted from the original allopath data (Dataset 3) for reasons of confidentiality. ICPSR received the omitted variables in 2009, 14 years after its initial release of the data.