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The American Health Values Survey (AHVS) was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago in order to develop a typology of Americans based on their health values and beliefs. The survey, of more than 10,000 adults from five individual communities, examined values and beliefs related to health at both the individual as well as societal levels. The community surveys sought to compare differences between the local typologies, but also to investigate any similarities with national typology groups. The survey assessed the importance of health in:

• day-to-day personal life (i.e. the amount of effort spent on disease prevention as well as appropriate seeking of medical care);
• equity, the value placed on the opportunity to succeed generally in life as well as on health equity;
• social solidarity, the importance of taking into account the needs of others as well as personal needs;
• health care disparities, views about how easy/hard it is for African Americans, Latinos and low-income Americans to get quality health care;
• and, the importance of the social determinants of health.

In addition, the survey also explored views about how active government should be in health; collective efficacy, the ease of affecting positive community change by working with others; and health-related civic engagement e.g. the support of health charities and organizations working on health issues.

There are public-use and restricted-use versions of the data provided for each of the five sentinel communities participating in this study. Although each site differs on the number of respondents as listed below, each data file contains the same 143 variables for each site and version of the data. The only difference between the public-use versus restricted-use versions of the data is the variable ZIP, which was MASKED in the public-use version.

• DS1 and DS2 - Baltimore, Maryland: 2,139
• DS3 and DS4 - Maricopa County, Arizona: 2,247
• DS5 and DS6 - Stockton, California: 2,127
• DS7 and DS8 - Mobile, Alabama: 1,821
• DS9 and DS10 - North Central counties in Nebraska: 2,846

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has a vision to build a Culture of Health (CoH) by making health a shared national priority, one valued and advanced by multiple stakeholders across all sectors of society. This vision embraces a very broadly integrated and comprehensive approach to health, one where well-being lies at the center of every aspect of American life. In 2014, the RWJF commissioned NORC at the University of Chicago to plan and conduct the first American Health Values Survey (AHVS) to understand the extent to which United States adults held views consistent with this vision. The idea was to explore which types of United States adults were more supportive and less supportive of the goal and what the differences were between the more and less supportive groups. To aid in the understanding of these differences, NORC developed a typology of United States adults based on their values and beliefs related to the CoH vision.

Using a large-scale national survey fielded in late 2015 and early 2016, NORC identified six major segments of the population of adults in the United States based on their differing health values and beliefs and developed detailed profiles of each segment that described their pattern of values and beliefs as well as their demographic, political and other characteristics. NORC subsequently replicated the typology development work in five RWJF Sentinel Communities across the nation and also developed a typology of rural America. The same segments, or similar ones, were common across various geographic areas of the United States. Four years have since passed, in which changes occurred in the country. RWJF in 2019 commissioned NORC to conduct a second national, cross-sectional survey (AHVS II) in late 2019 and early 2020.

Oral contraceptive (OC) users living in El Paso, Texas were interviewed to assess motivations for patronizing a United States clinic or a Mexican pharmacy with over-the-counter (OTC) pills and to determine which women were likely to use the OTC option. The experiences of OC users who obtained their contraception from Mexican pharmacies were compared with those of women who obtained their pills from family planning clinics in El Paso, Texas, where eligible low-income women often pay nothing. 532 clinic users and 514 pharmacy users were surveyed about background characteristics, motivations for choosing their oral contraception source, and satisfaction with this source. For more information, please see the Border Contraceptive Access Study website.

The purpose of this project was to measure and estimate the distribution of personal income and related economic factors in both rural and urban areas of the People's Republic of China. The principal investigators based their definition of income on cash payments and on a broad range of additional components. Data were collected through a series of questionnaire-based interviews conducted in rural and urban areas at the end of 2002. There are ten separate datasets. The first four datasets were derived from the urban questionnaire. The first contains data about individuals living in urban areas. The second contains data about urban households. The third contains individual-level economic variables copied from the initial urban interview form. The fourth contains household-level economic variables copied from the initial urban interview form. The fifth dataset contains village-level data, which was obtained by interviewing village leaders. The sixth contains data about individuals living in rural areas. The seventh contains data about rural households, as well as most of the data from a social network questionnaire which was presented to rural households. The eighth contains the rest of the data from the social network questionnaire and is specifically about the activities of rural school-age children. The ninth dataset contains data about individuals who have migrated from rural to urban areas, and the tenth dataset contains data about rural-urban migrant households. Dataset 1 contains 151 variables and 20,632 cases (individual urban household members). Dataset 2 contains 88 variables and 6,835 cases (urban households). Dataset 3 contains 44 variables and 27,818 cases, at least 6,835 of which are empty cases used to separate households in the file. The remaining cases from dataset 3 match those in dataset 1. Dataset 4 contains 212 variables and 6,835 cases, which match those in dataset 2. Dataset 5 contains 259 variables and 961 cases (villages). Dataset 6 contains 84 variables and 37,969 cases (individual rural household members). Dataset 7 contains 449 variables and 9,200 cases (rural households). Dataset 8 contains 38 variables and 8,121 cases (individual school-age children). Dataset 9 contains 76 variables and 5,327 cases (individual rural-urban migrant household members). Dataset 10 contains 129 variables and 2,000 cases (rural-urban migrant households).

The Chinese Household Income Project collected data in 1988, 1995, 2002, and 2007. ICPSR holds data from the first three collections, and information about these can be found on the series description page. Data collected in 2007 are available through the China Institute for Income Distribution.

Purpose. This was a Data Capacity-Building Project, to build a robust comparative effectiveness research infrastructure, agenda, and collaborative partnerships focused on eliminating health disparities. Specifically, a database was built comprised of all Medicaid enrollees and claims in the states that share in common both adverse minority health outcomes and the historical roots of racial health disparities in the South.

Setting and Participants. A 100 percent sample of four years 2004-2007 of Medicaid Analytic Extract (MAX-file) data (plus Medicare-linked claims for dual-eligibles) from fourteen southern states, representing 3.8 to 5.4 million persons each year (one-third of all United States Medicaid enrollees, nearly half [48 percent] of African American and 21 percent of Latino Medicaid enrollees in the United States) was obtained from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This region is the epicenter of the Black-White health disparities epidemic, and has also experienced a recent and rapid influx of Latino immigrants. This project provided support for personnel and infrastructure needed to efficiently organize and analyze these data to support minority investigators. The HBCU-based team had extensive previous experience training health services researchers (especially minority investigators) to use Medicaid claims data for research.

Specific Aims: Using Medicaid Claims Data

1. To build a Medicaid claims dataset (including socieconomic, contextual, and geospatial analytic variables, NDC cross-walk data and therapeutic class codes, as well as certain Medicare data for dual-eligibles) to support projects focused on the intersection between disparities research and comparative effectiveness research in clinically and socially complex patient populations.

2. To create an efficient process for assisting non-Morehouse investigators to develop research protocols, analysis plans, CMS data re-use requests, and analytic files for collaborative research.

3. To train, develop, cultivate, and support emerging minority investigators (especially at Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions) as independently-funded health services researchers who are increasingly proficient in multivariate analysis of Medicaid and Medicare claims data.

4. Cultivate comparative effectiveness and disparities research collaborations with Georgia Tech experts in mathematics, complexity science, simulation modeling, and interactive computing.

Relevance. Medicaid patients are characterized by clinical and social complexity -- the very characteristics which often exclude them from clinical trials and yet drive health disparities. This Medicaid-based dataset populates studies that help users understand how local area, provider-level, and patient-level differences in treatment (natural experiments in comparative effectiveness) influence clinical and economic outcomes. Variation implies that disparities are not inevitable. The comparative impact of this natural variation can be measured in meaningful outcomes such as emergency department visits, hospital admissions, inpatient bed-days, deaths, and total Medicaid expenditures, as well as community-level disparity rate-ratios. Medicaid data allow users to follow a complex patient (e.g., comorbid diabetes and schizophrenia or COPD and CHF) from treatment to outcomes through every billable service in the health care system (i.e., from doctor's visit to lab tests to prescriptions to emergency room visits or hospital admissions). Morehouse School of Medicine has a unique ability to develop a new cadre of minority investigators to conduct and interpret the results of health services research with a racially sensitive, culturally competent perspective.

Data Overview. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services produces the MAX-files from Medicaid Statistical Information System (MSIS) data submitted by each state, with some data cleaning and validation by CMS sub-contractors before data are released to researchers.

The MAX-file data from CMS were loaded onto encrypted, secure servers at Morehouse School of Medicine. Research analytic files were created for each sub-project, including sickle cell disease, diabetes and schizophrenia; asthma; dementia; and congestive heart failure. For specific sub-projects, contextual variables from census data or area resource file were linked by county FIPS code.

Data Access. The data cannot be made publicly available. Data are stored on Morehouse School of Medicine encrypted servers, and may be used only for projects covered within the aims of the original research protocol and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)-approved data use agreement. Data sharing is allowed only for research protocols approved under data re-use requests by the CMS privacy board. The CMS process for data re-use requests is described at the ResDAC Web site.

Due to limitations of research staff within the Morehouse National Center for Primary Care, and limitations of the existing CMS data use agreement, only re-use requests consistent with the original aims of the approved research protocol are considered (temporal and geographic variation in racial-ethnic disparities in quality, access and outcomes for Medicaid enrollees in 14 southern states). Specific aims of the current research protocol define the boundaries of what kind of research questions could be answered or sub-projects developed within the existing research protocol and data use agreement (see above "Specific Aims" section). A worksheet for developing an analysis plan for a specific research question is attached. Parties interested in the data should contact George Rust, MD, MPH ([email protected]).

Six SAS program syntax files used for data analysis, however, are available on the ICPSR site.

Aside from data re-use requests, the Morehouse National Center for Primary Care is open to collaborations which address these research aims and are consistent with their health equity research priorities, in which analyses could be performed by the Morehouse National Center for Primary Care research team and papers authored or co-authored by faculty from other minority-serving institutions or affiliated with the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Translational Research Network (RTRN).

The rate of cancer screening is generally increasing in the United States. In Minnesota, the statewide average rate of screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) is 73 percent. However, screening completion is relatively low among Somali men; overall, only 27 percent of Somali immigrants have been screened for CRC. Factors contributing to this disparity have not been well researched.

The purpose of this pilot study was to employ focus group methodology to describe and advance understanding of the barriers and enablers associated with CRC screening among Somali men ages 50-74 in Minnesota. Three focus groups were conducted among 27 Somali men in Minnesota. A 9-question, semi-structured interview guide was used. The sessions were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and checked for accuracy by research staff prior to data analysis. Three research team members utilized the constant comparative method and NVivo to conduct data analysis.

Five barriers to CRC screening emerged from the analyses:

1. Lack of knowledge
2. Emotional barriers
3. Acculturation
4. Accountability
5. Fatalistic beliefs

In addition, two factors enabling CRC screening and prevention emerged: the need for tailored interventions and preventive lifestyle behaviors. The insights gained from this research will assist in developing health promotion and education-focused interventions that encourage Somali immigrants in Minnesota and beyond to seek early detection screening for CRC.

Altarum's Consumer Healthcare Experience State Survey (CHESS) and Medical Debt Survey are designed to elicit respondents' unbiased views on a wide range of health system issues, including confidence in using the health system, financial burden, medical debt, and views on fixes that might be needed. The surveys use a web panel from Dynata with a demographically balanced sample of approximately 1,500 respondents who live in a targeted state. The surveys were conducted in English or Spanish and restricted to adults ages 18 and older. Respondents who finished the surveys in less than half the median time were excluded from the final sample.

The Continuity and Change in Contraceptive Use study assessed contraceptive use patterns from a national sample of women four times over an 18-month time period. Researchers examined patterns of use and a wide range of issues that inform women's contraceptive use patterns, including pregnancy motivation, life events, relationship dynamics and access to health care.

In the context of COVID-19, RAND and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have partnered to build from the National Survey of Health Attitudes to implement a longitudinal survey to understand how health views and values have been affected by the experience of the pandemic, with particular focus on populations deemed vulnerable or underserved, including people of color and those from low-to moderate-income backgrounds.

Questions in this COVID-19 survey focused specifically on experiences related to the pandemic (e.g., financial, physical, emotional), how respondents viewed the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic, whether and how respondents' views and priorities regarding health actions and investments are changing (including the roles of government and the private sector), and how general values about such issues as freedom and racism may be related to pandemic views and response expectations.

This study includes the results for Wave 1 for the general population.

Demographic information includes sex, marital status, household size, race and ethnicity, family income, employment status, age, and census region.

In the context of COVID-19, RAND and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have partnered to build from the National Survey of Health Attitudes to implement a longitudinal survey to understand how health views and values have been affected by the experience of the pandemic, with particular focus on populations deemed vulnerable or underserved, including people of color and those from low-to moderate-income backgrounds.

In the context of COVID-19, RAND and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation partnered again to build from the National Survey of Health Attitudes to implement a longitudinal survey to understand how health views and values have been affected by the experience of the pandemic, with particular focus on populations deemed vulnerable or underserved, including people of color and those from low- to moderate-income backgrounds.

The study is a longitudinal study, collecting data in four waves. The study also included 2 populations: A sample of populations at greater risk, and a general population sample. This study includes the results for Wave 2 for populations at greater risk.

One previous wave and two future waves were conducted. The questions in the surveys were largely similar across all four waves. All respondents who participated in Wave 1 were invited to participate in the future waves.

Demographic info includes sex, marital status, household size, race and ethnicity, family income, employment status, age, and census region.