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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.

This is a United States nationally representative survey of 4142 respondents age 18 and older from the National Opinion Research Center Amerispeak panel. The study survey includes self rated health, 4 summary measures of health, questions about chronic conditions, and questions about social determinants of health. Basic demographic information is included in this study regarding age, education, race/ethnicity, gender, household size, housing type, household income, marital status, and employment status.

The National Opinion Research Center also provided the latitude and longitude of the participant's household which were used to get census tract level information and scores from walkscore.com (walkability, transportation, and opportunity scores).

This catalog record includes detailed variable-level descriptions, enabling data discovery and comparison. The data are not archived at ICPSR. Users should consult the data owners (via the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research) directly for details on obtaining the data.

This collection includes variable-level metadata of Sick in Massachusetts, a survey from the Harvard School of Public Health, WBUR Boston National Public Radio, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, conducted by Social Science Research Solutions (SSRS). Topics covered in this survey include:

• Quality of health care
• Health insurance, insurance status, and care costs
• Reasons for health care quality problems
• Focus of doctor visits
• Reasons for rising health care costs
• Health care as good value
• Agreement with doctor statements
• Amount of doctors
• Attending routine check-ups
• Overnight stays in hospitals
• Satisfaction with hospital care
• Medical costs as reasonable
• Description of hospital stay
• Recent serious illness
• Satisfaction with medical care
• Interactions with health care professionals
• Impact of medical costs on family
• Receiving care every time it's needed
• Being turned away for health care
• Insurance premiums as financial problem
• Out-of-pocket medical costs
• Negotiating lower charges
• Problems paying for insurance
• Changing regular doctor
• Personal financial situation

The data and documentation files for this survey are available through the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research [Roper #31092353]. Frequencies and summary statistics for the 162 variables from this survey are available through the ICPSR social science variable database and can be accessed from the Variables tab.