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The overall goal of the Baby's First Years study is to assess the causal role played by household income in affecting children's early cognitive, socio-emotional, and brain development. Recent advances in developmental neuroscience suggest that experiences early in life have profound and enduring impacts on the developing brain. Family economic resources shape the nature of many of these experiences, yet the extent to which they affect children's development is unknown. The Baby's First Years project is the first randomized controlled trial to provide estimates of the causal impacts of unconditional cash gifts on the cognitive, socio-emotional, and brain development of infants and young children in low-income U.S. families.

Specifically, 1,000 recruited mothers of infants with incomes below the federal poverty line from four diverse U.S. communities are receiving monthly cash gift payments by debit card. Mothers were initially told the gifts would last for the first 40 months of their child's life, but we have secured funding to continue the payments for three additional years (i.e., for a total of 76 months). Parents in the high cash gift group (n=400 in the study sample) are receiving a cash gift of $333 per month ($4,000 per year), while parents in the low cash gift group (n=600) are receiving a nominal monthly gift payment of $20 ($240 per year), also for 76 months.

In order to measure the impacts of the unconditional cash gift income on children's cognitive and behavioral development, we are assessing high and low cash gift group differences at ages 4, 6, and 8 (and, for a subset of measures, we capture interim development at ages 1, 2, and 3) in measures of cognitive, language, memory, self-regulation, and socio-emotional development. In order to understand the processes by which child impacts emerge, we are measuring a host of family process measures summarized in our pre-registration chart. Our data collection points are referred to as: "baseline", "age 1", "age 2," "age 3", "age 4", "age 6", and "age 8".

Additional information on the project, survey design, sample, variables, and COVID-19 pandemic adjustments are available from:

• The User Guides for Baseline, Age 1, Age 2, Age 3, and Age 4, which are included under the "Data and Documentation" tab
• The project's website: babysfirstyears.com

The researchers request that all peer-reviewed papers using BFY Data:

• be submitted to PubMed https://publicaccess.nih.gov immediately upon acceptance for publication
• include the following citation to the data in their bibliography:

Citation

Magnuson, Katherine A., Kimberly Noble, Greg J. Duncan, Nathan A. Fox, Lisa A. Gennetian, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, and Sarah Halpern-Meekin. Baby's First Years (BFY), New York City, New Orleans, Omaha, and Twin Cities, 2018-2023. ICPSR37871-v8. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], YYYY-MM-DD. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37871.v8

• and include the following in their acknowledgements:

Acknowledgement

This research uses data from the Baby's First Years study. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01HD087384 and 2R01HD087384. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. This research was additionally supported by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation; Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research-Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health; Andrew and Julie Klingenstein Family Fund; Annie E. Casey Foundation; Arnold Ventures; Arrow Impact; BCBS of Louisiana Foundation; Bezos Family Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Bill Hammack and Janice Parmelee, Brady Education Fund; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (Silicon Valley Community Foundation); Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies; Child Welfare Fund; Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fund; Ford Foundation; Greater New Orleans Foundation; Heising-Simons Foundation; Holland Foundation; Jacobs Foundation; JPB Foundation; J-PAL North America; Lozier Foundation; New York City Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity; Perigee Fund; Robin Hood Foundation; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Russell Sage Foundation; Sherwood Foundation; Valhalla Foundation; Weitz Family Foundation; W.K. Kellogg Foundation; and three anonymous donors.

Principal Investigators

Katherine Magnuson, PhD; University of Wisconsin-Madison, lead PI social and behavioral science

Kimberly Noble, MD, PhD; Teachers College, Columbia University, lead PI neuroscience

In alphabetical order:

Greg Duncan, PhD; University of California, Irvine

Nathan A. Fox, PhD; University of Maryland

Lisa A. Gennetian, PhD; Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy

Hirokazu Yoshikawa, PhD; New York University

Principal Investigators of Qualitative Substudy

Sarah Halpern-Meekin, PhD; University of Wisconsin-Madison

Katherine Magnuson, PhD; University of Wisconsin-Madison

Study Management

Lauren Meyer, Teachers College, Columbia University; National Project Director

Andrea Karsh, University of California, Irvine; Administrative Director

Matthew Maury, Duke University, Production and Retention Management

Study Co-Investigators

Sarah Black, PhD; University of New Orleans

William Fifer, PhD; Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, Columbia University Medical Center

Michael Georgieff, MD; University of Minnesota

Joseph Isler, PhD; Columbia University Medical Center

Debra Karhson, PhD; University of New Orleans

Alicia Kunin-Batson, PhD, University of Minnesota

Connie Lamm, PhD; University of Arkansas

Dennis Molfese, PhD; University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Victoria Molfese, PhD; University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Jennifer Mize Nelson, PhD; University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Timothy Nelson, PhD; University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Sonya Troller-Renfree, PhD; Teachers College, Columbia University

Study Data Collectors

The Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is responsible for recruitment and baseline, age-1, age-2, and age-3 data collection waves. Starting at age-4 through age-8, SRC is responsible for tracking families and assisting site-based staff in locating families. SRC data collection operations are overseen by: Stephanie Chardoul, Director of Survey Research Operations and Piotr Dworak, Senior Survey Specialist, Survey Research Operations.

Contact

To contact the study investigators, email them at [email protected]

Website: babysfirstyears.com

Tsogolo la Thanzi (TLT) is a longitudinal study in Balaka, Malawi designed to examine how young people navigate reproduction in an AIDS epidemic. Tsogolo la Thanzi means "Healthy Futures" in Chichewa, Malawi's most widely spoken language. Data are being collected to develop better understandings of the reproductive goals and behavior of young adults in Malawi -- the first cohort to never have experienced life without AIDS. To understand these patterns of family formation in a rapidly changing setting, TLT used the following approach: an intensive longitudinal design where respondents were interviewed every four months at TLT's centralized research center. Data collection began in May of 2009 and was completed in June of 2012. To assess changes on a longer time-horizon, a follow-up survey referred to as Tsogolo la Thanzi 2 (TLT-2) was fielded between June and August of 2015.

This dataset is a supplementary survey module that was administered to women TLT participants during waves 2 to 8 who reported having a new birth since their last interview, and to those in the refresher sample (wave 9) who reported a recent birth in the past 4 months. The survey focused on several aspects of the childbirth experience and the mother's and child's postpartum health.

The Early Care and Education Leadership Study (ExCELS) was funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The project team was led by Mathematica and the Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

The project included a descriptive study with the following goals: (1) establish a measure of early care and education (ECE) leadership in center-based settings that serve children birth through age five (not yet in kindergarten) that meets standards for reliability and validity to support its intended use and (2) examine empirical support for the associations among key constructs and outcomes in the theory of change of ECE leadership for quality improvement. Research questions focused on understanding the three key elements that define what leadership in center-based ECE settings looks like: (1) who leaders are, (2) what individuals bring to leadership, and (3) what ECE staff do as leaders.

From February through July 2022, the study team recruited 132 ECE centers across four states that served children from birth through age 5 (who are not yet in kindergarten), and that were supported by Head Start grants or Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) subsidies. From March through August 2022, the study team conducted phone interviews to collect center characteristics and learn about the center's staffing structure and leadership positions, and distributed surveys to center managers and teaching staff in recruited centers.

The User's Guide for this study can be obtained by selecting "Documentation Only" from the Download tab on this study homepage. The User's Guide and all ExCELS documentation will download in one zip file.

Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start (MIHOPE-Strong Start) was a large-scale evaluation that rigorously tested the effectiveness of evidence-based home visiting in improving birth and health outcomes during pregnancy and in the year after birth. Local programs included in the study's analysis implemented one of two evidence-based models: Healthy Families America (HFA) or Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP). These models were chosen because earlier evaluations found some evidence of their having positive impacts on birth outcomes.

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) partnered with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to sponsor the study. MIHOPE-Strong Start was part of the CMMI's Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns Initiative, which evaluated whether enhanced, nonmedical prenatal interventions, when provided in addition to routine medical care, have the potential to improve birth outcomes and reduce health care costs for women enrolled in Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Under contract with OPRE, MDRC conducted MIHOPE-Strong Start in collaboration with James Bell Associates, Johns Hopkins University, Mathematica, and New York University.

The analysis for MIHOPE-Strong Start included 2,899 women and 66 local programs (37 HFA and 29 NFP programs) operating across 17 states: California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, and Wisconsin. Women were eligible for MIHOPE-Strong Start if they were pregnant and at least 8 weeks from their due date.

The MIHOPE-Strong Start analysis included a subset of families and local programs that were recruited for MIHOPE, the national evaluation of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program. Specifically, the MIHOPE-Strong Start impact analysis included information on 46 local home visiting programs and 1,845 families that were initially recruited for MIHOPE but met the MIHOPE-Strong Start eligibility criteria. An important distinction between MIHOPE-Strong Start and MIHOPE is that MIHOPE included only programs receiving MIECHV funding, while MIHOPE-Strong Start included both MIECHV and non-MIECHV-funded programs.

In both studies, families were randomly assigned either to an evidence-based home visiting program or to a control group who was given information on other services available in the community. The random assignment design was intended to create program and control groups that were similar when women entered the study, so that systematic differences in the outcomes of interest observed between the two groups can be attributed to the home visiting services rather than to the preexisting characteristics of the women.

The Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (Baby FACES) is a nationally representative descriptive study of Early Head Start. The first cohort of Baby FACES was fielded in 2009-2012. It used a longitudinal design and followed two age cohorts of children (newborns and 1-year-olds) through their time in Early Head Start. Baby FACES was redesigned in 2015 to employ a repeated cross-sectional approach to provide a comprehensive snapshot of Early Head Start with a nationally representative sample of programs, centers, home visitors, teachers/classrooms, and enrolled families, children of all age groups, and pregnant women in Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Regions I through X. Using the cross-sectional design, the second cohort of Baby FACES was fielded in the spring of 2018 (Baby FACES 2018) and a third is planned for spring of 2020 (Baby FACES 2020). Baby FACES 2018 and 2020 have a particular focus on the processes in the classrooms/home visits that support responsive relationships, including teacher-child relationships, staff-parent relationships, and parent-child relationships. These studies address the overarching research question: How do Early Head Start services support infant/toddler growth and development in the context of nurturing, responsive relationships?

Tsogolo la Thanzi (TLT) is a longitudinal study in Balaka, Malawi designed to examine how young people navigate reproduction in an AIDS epidemic. Tsogolo la Thanzi means "Healthy Futures" in Chichewa, Malawi's most widely spoken language. New data is being collected to develop better understandings of the reproductive goals and behavior of young adults in Malawi -- the first cohort to never have experienced life without AIDS. To understand these patterns of family formation in a rapidly changing setting, TLT used the following approach: an intensive longitudinal design where respondents are interviewed every fourth months at TLT's centralized research center. Data collection began in May of 2009 and was completed in June of 2012. To assess changes on a longer time-horizon, a follow-up survey referred to as Tsogolo la Thanzi 2 (TLT-2) was fielded between June and August of 2016. Please see ICPSR 36863 for the baseline dataset.

At each wave, women who tested as positive for pregnancy were given a questionnaire asking additional questions about that pregnancy. This dataset includes women from all waves.

Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act authorizes states, with the incentive of federal financial support, to create Early Intervention (EI) systems, which is a primary source of rehabilitation (e.g., physical, occupational, and speech therapy) services for infants and toddlers with, or at risk for, developmental delays. Having worked with two EI Colorado (EI-CO) programs that employed electronic documentation, the researchers sought to leverage their electronic administrative data in order to examine social disparities in EI service use, including specific rehabilitation services.

The dataset for this data archiving project was generated in collaboration with a large, urban EI program in Colorado, a community partner for an NIH/NCMRR R03 study. This academic-community research partnership provided researchers with access to an urban EI program's electronic administrative database; The researchers' goal was to make these data available for further EI research. Therefore, a database was created and a number of variables were derived that could be of importance to EI stakeholders when conducting clinical queries for quality improvement. Examples of derived variables include EI service use intensity (i.e., hours per month) for all EI services, as well as discipline-specific (e.g., physical or occupational therapy) service use. The researchers obtained permission from the partnering EI agency to archive their EI program data through this project.

The dataset included as part of this collection includes 2045 cases for 44 variables; demographic variables include: race, ethnicity, language, sex, age, and developmental condition type.

The Carolina Abecedarian (ABC) Project and the Carolina Approach to Responsive Education (CARE) projects consist of two consecutive longitudinal studies on the effectiveness of early childhood educational intervention for children at high risk for developmental delays and school failure. Combined, the two studies test the hypothesis that child care, home visit, and home school resource interventions can enhance cognitive and academic outcomes for children at risk for school failure due to factors such as poverty, low maternal IQ, or low parental education. These studies provide the only experimental data regarding the efficacy of child care interventions that began during early infancy and lasted until the child entered kindergarten. In addition, the data allow for tests of the efficacy of intervention during the primary grades.

Research hypotheses include:

• Within this high-risk sample, early cumulative risk will be negatively associated with young adult educational outcomes, employment outcomes, avoidance of teen parenthood, and avoidance of criminal behavior.
• Early intervention will moderate the effects of risk such that the effects of increased risk would be weaker for those who received the intervention than for those who did not.
• The early home environment would mediate any found effects for early risk and that early educational intervention would moderate the effects of the early home environment such that the effects of a poor-quality home environment would be weaker for those who received treatment compared to those who did not.

Demographic variables included in this collection: gender, age, level of education.

The overall purpose of this study was to examine the influence of variations in early childcare histories on the psychological development of infants and toddlers from a variety of family backgrounds. This general objective was addressed through a prospective, longitudinal study of the experiences of 1,364 children and their families, which took into account the complex interactions among child characteristics and those of the human and physical environments in which the children were reared.

The specific research aims were as follows:

• Examining the relationship between infants' childcare arrangements (defined in terms of hours, type, quality, and stability of care and the age at which the child entered care) and children's concurrent and long-term development. Specifically, the study investigated the association between children's experiences in childcare and their social, emotional, language, and cognitive development. The social-emotional assessments included measures of attachment, independence, compliance, behavior problems, prosocial and antisocial behavior, and general competence in interacting with peers. Cognitive variables include general developmental level and problem solving skills. Language assessments incorporated measures of children's expressive and receptive communicative competence.

• Examining whether the social ecology of the home moderates the effects of childcare, i.e., whether children from different home environments are differentially affected by similar childcare experiences. The study examined the moderating effects of parents' values and attitudes, psychological adjustment and mental health, stress and social support, child-rearing practices, time use, interactions with the child, the marital relationship, and family demographics.

• Examining whether individual differences among children moderate the effects of infant care on child development. The study examined the moderating effects of such child characteristics as age, sex, health, birth order, and temperament.

• Identify demographic and family characteristics associated with families' childcare decisions. The study examined whether specific childcare arrangements are related to the parents' social class, marital status, psychological adjustment and personality, child-rearing values and attitudes, parenting practices, stress, social support, marital relationship, and the availability of childcare in the community.

• Provide a natural history of infant care in the 1990s, and help establish a baseline of data pertaining to the kinds of care being used by families. Whereas other national databases, such as those provided by the United States Census Bureau, provide static estimates of the number of children in different types of childcare, this network study supplements that knowledge with longitudinal data on successive enrollments into day care at various ages, patterns of arrangements used concurrently and over time, and the stability of arrangements during the first three years of life. One of the most valuable aspects of the collaborative study is the opportunity it provides to obtain a more complete and accurate picture of patterns of infant care used by families today. Census surveys use only gross categories of care (e.g., center vs. in-home). In this study, more fine-grained information regarding the types of centers and home-care facilities was gathered.

• Examine the consequences for families of maternal employment and childcare choices. Family relationships, parental mental health, family stress, and so on, are not just inputs to child development or moderators of childcare effects, they are also outcomes. High-quality childcare may alleviate family stress and enhance parental adjustment. Low-quality childcare may add to the stress parents experience. Although the main focus in the study was on the effect of childcare on the child, the study also examined the effect of childcare on the family.

• Identify demographic characteristics of childcare associated with childcare quality. Of interest to policy makers is another aspect of the study, the investigation of those regulatory characteristics that predict care of higher quality. These characteristics included the level and type of caregiver training, the size of the childcare group, the auspices of the childcare program (public/private, profit/nonprofit, independent/chain, employer-sponsored/church-based), whether the facility was licensed or unlicensed, the level of payment and fees, and whether the caregiver was a relative of the family.

309 data files were compiled for this study and are organized into 3 main groups:

1. Analytical Data Sets (ADS) -- The raw data were examined and composites defined by small groups of individual principal investigators according to the demographic, family, childcare, and child outcome content of the data. The psychometric and distributional qualities of the variables, along with site differences, were examined. A set of variables that were psychometrically and distributionally acceptable to be used in analytic analyses was designed to test the study hypotheses. These data files comprise Parts 1-42 of the study data material.

2. Supplemental Data Sets -- New and revised analysis variables as well as across-time mean scores and primary composites were produced as a supplement to the original Analytical Datasets. These data files comprise Parts 43-55 of the study data material.

3. Raw Data Sets -- The raw data were made available and comprise Parts 56-309 of the study data material.

A three-day summer training workshop on the SECCYD was put on by NICHD at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2010. The binder from that workshop, which includes the Powerpoint slides used during presentations, are freely available to the public as part of the study documentation.

The overall purpose of this study was to examine the influence of variations in early childcare histories on the psychological development of infants and toddlers from a variety of family backgrounds. This general objective was addressed through a prospective, longitudinal study of the experiences of 1,364 children and their families, which took into account the complex interactions among child characteristics and those of the human and physical environments in which the children were reared.

The specific research aims were as follows:

• Examining the relationship between infants' childcare arrangements (defined in terms of hours, type, quality, and stability of care and the age at which the child entered care) and children's concurrent and long-term development. Specifically, the study investigated the association between children's experiences in childcare and their social, emotional, language, and cognitive development. The social-emotional assessments included measures of attachment, independence, compliance, behavior problems, prosocial and antisocial behavior, and general competence in interacting with peers. Cognitive variables include general developmental level and problem solving skills. Language assessments incorporated measures of children's expressive and receptive communicative competence.

• Examining whether the social ecology of the home moderates the effects of childcare, i.e., whether children from different home environments are differentially affected by similar childcare experiences. The study examined the moderating effects of parents' values and attitudes, psychological adjustment and mental health, stress and social support, child-rearing practices, time use, interactions with the child, the marital relationship, and family demographics.

• Examining whether individual differences among children moderate the effects of infant care on child development. The study examined the moderating effects of such child characteristics as age, sex, health, birth order, and temperament.

• Identify demographic and family characteristics associated with families' childcare decisions. The study examined whether specific childcare arrangements are related to the parents' social class, marital status, psychological adjustment and personality, child-rearing values and attitudes, parenting practices, stress, social support, marital relationship, and the availability of childcare in the community.

• Provide a natural history of infant care in the 1990s, and help establish a baseline of data pertaining to the kinds of care being used by families. Whereas other national databases, such as those provided by the United States Census Bureau, provide static estimates of the number of children in different types of childcare, this network study supplements that knowledge with longitudinal data on successive enrollments into day care at various ages, patterns of arrangements used concurrently and over time, and the stability of arrangements during the first three years of life. One of the most valuable aspects of the collaborative study is the opportunity it provides to obtain a more complete and accurate picture of patterns of infant care used by families today. Census surveys use only gross categories of care (e.g., center vs. in-home). In this study, more fine-grained information regarding the types of centers and home-care facilities was gathered.

• Examine the consequences for families of maternal employment and childcare choices. Family relationships, parental mental health, family stress, and so on, are not just inputs to child development or moderators of childcare effects, they are also outcomes. High-quality childcare may alleviate family stress and enhance parental adjustment. Low-quality childcare may add to the stress parents experience. Although the main focus in the study was on the effect of childcare on the child, the study also examined the effect of childcare on the family.

• Identify demographic characteristics of childcare associated with childcare quality. Of interest to policy makers is another aspect of the study, the investigation of those regulatory characteristics that predict care of higher quality. These characteristics included the level and type of caregiver training, the size of the childcare group, the auspices of the childcare program (public/private, profit/nonprofit, independent/chain, employer-sponsored/church-based), whether the facility was licensed or unlicensed, the level of payment and fees, and whether the caregiver was a relative of the family.

193 data files were compiled for this study and are organized into 3 main groups:

1. Analytical Data Sets (ADS) -- The raw data were examined and composites defined by small groups of individual principal investigators according to the demographic, family, childcare, and child outcome content of the data. The psychometric and distributional qualities of the variables along with site differences were examined. A set of variables that was psychometrically and distributionally acceptable to be used in analytic analyses was designed to test the study hypotheses. These data files comprise Parts 1-24 of the study data material.

2. Supplemental Data Sets -- New and revised analysis variables as well as across-time mean scores and primary composites were produced as a supplement to the original Analytical Data Sets. These data files comprise Parts 25-27 of the study data material.

3. Raw Data Sets -- The raw data were made available and comprise Parts 28-193 of the study data material.

A three-day summer training workshop on the SECCYD was put on by NICHD at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2010. The binder from that workshop, which includes the Powerpoint slides used during presentations, are freely available to the public as part of the study documentation.

The overall purpose of this study was to examine the influence of variations in early childcare histories on the psychological development of infants and toddlers from a variety of family backgrounds. This general objective was addressed through a prospective, longitudinal study of the experiences of 1,364 children and their families, which took into account the complex interactions among child characteristics and those of the human and physical environments in which the children were reared.

The specific research aims were as follows:

• Examining the relationship between infants' childcare arrangements (defined in terms of hours, type, quality, and stability of care and the age at which the child entered care) and children's concurrent and long-term development. Specifically, the study investigated the association between children's experiences in childcare and their social, emotional, language, and cognitive development. The social-emotional assessments included measures of attachment, independence, compliance, behavior problems, prosocial and antisocial behavior, and general competence in interacting with peers. Cognitive variables include general developmental level and problem solving skills. Language assessments incorporated measures of children's expressive and receptive communicative competence.

• Examining whether the social ecology of the home moderates the effects of childcare, i.e., whether children from different home environments are differentially affected by similar childcare experiences. The study examined the moderating effects of parents' values and attitudes, psychological adjustment and mental health, stress and social support, child-rearing practices, time use, interactions with the child, the marital relationship, and family demographics.

• Examining whether individual differences among children moderate the effects of infant care on child development. The study examined the moderating effects of such child characteristics as age, sex, health, birth order, and temperament.

• Identify demographic and family characteristics associated with families' childcare decisions. The study examined whether specific childcare arrangements are related to the parents' social class, marital status, psychological adjustment and personality, child-rearing values and attitudes, parenting practices, stress, social support, marital relationship, and the availability of childcare in the community.

• Provide a natural history of infant care in the 1990s, and help establish a baseline of data pertaining to the kinds of care being used by families. Whereas other national databases, such as those provided by the United States Census Bureau, provide static estimates of the number of children in different types of childcare, this network study supplements that knowledge with longitudinal data on successive enrollments into day care at various ages, patterns of arrangements used concurrently and over time, and the stability of arrangements during the first three years of life. One of the most valuable aspects of the collaborative study is the opportunity it provides to obtain a more complete and accurate picture of patterns of infant care used by families today. Census surveys use only gross categories of care (e.g., center vs. in-home). In this study, more fine-grained information regarding the types of centers and home-care facilities was gathered.

• Examine the consequences for families of maternal employment and childcare choices. Family relationships, parental mental health, family stress, and so on, are not just inputs to child development or moderators of childcare effects, they are also outcomes. High-quality childcare may alleviate family stress and enhance parental adjustment. Low-quality childcare may add to the stress parents experience. Although the main focus in the study was on the effect of childcare on the child, the study also examined the effect of childcare on the family.

• Identify demographic characteristics of childcare associated with childcare quality. Of interest to policy makers is another aspect of the study, the investigation of those regulatory characteristics that predict care of higher quality. These characteristics included the level and type of caregiver training, the size of the childcare group, the auspices of the childcare program (public/private, profit/nonprofit, independent/chain, employer-sponsored/church-based), whether the facility was licensed or unlicensed, the level of payment and fees, and whether the caregiver was a relative of the family.

504 data files were compiled for this study and are organized into 4 main groups:

1. Analytical Data Sets (ADS) -- The raw data were examined and composites defined by small groups of individual principal investigators according to the demographic, family, childcare, and child outcome content of the data. The psychometric and distributional qualities of the variables along with site differences were examined. A set of variables that was psychometrically and distributionally acceptable to be used in analytic analyses was designed to test the study hypotheses. These data files comprise Parts 1-49 of the study data material.

2. Supplemental Data Sets -- New and revised analysis variables as well as across-time mean scores and primary composites were produced as a supplement to the original Analytical Data Sets. These data files comprise Parts 50-55 of the study data material.

3. Raw Census-Related Data Sets -- Files were produced using geocoded addresses for survey respondents to match block group level data from the 1990 and 2000 Censuses for investigators to create additional measures of interest from the geocoded addresses. These data files comprise Parts 56-58 of the study data material.

4. Raw Data Sets -- The raw data were made available and comprise Parts 59-505 of the study data material.

A three-day summer training workshop on the SECCYD was put on by NICHD at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2010. The binder from that workshop, which includes the Powerpoint slides used during presentations, are freely available to the public as part of the study documentation.

The Office of Head Start Program Information Report (PIR) provides comprehensive data on the services, staff, children, and families served by Head Start and Early Head Start programs nationwide. All grantees and delegates are required to submit PIR for Head Start and Early Head Start Programs. PIR data is compiled for use at the federal, regional, state, and local level.

The PIR collects data on child, staff, and family demographics and program characteristics including data on physical health, mental health, disabilities, and family services. All of this data is aggregated and reported by each program to the Office of Head Start.

The Simmons Longitudinal Study (SLS) is a community-based study that has prospectively traced the life course of a single-aged cohort from childhood (age 5) to adulthood (age 26). Data were collected from multiple informants at seven major time points: age 5 (1977), age 6 (1978), age 9 (1980-1981), age 15 (1987), age 18 (1990), age 21 (1993-1994), and age 26 (1998). Since its inception in 1977, the SLS has utilized a multidisciplinary, multimethod approach, with the dual goals of: (1) tracing the development and course of academic difficulties, behavior problems, and psychopathology; and (2) identifying factors that promote health functioning from early childhood (age 5) to adulthood (age 26). The SLS has consistently emphasized the identification of modifiable social and environmental risk and protective factors that can be targeted directly in prevention and intervention programs. To date, SLS has published 50 journal articles and 9 book chapters. For this wave of the study, Wave 1, the original study group was comprised of every child who entered kindergarten in the fall of 1977 in one public school district in a northeastern town in the United States. Each child participated in state-mandated testing of health and development three months before the start of school. The mothers of respondents also completed questionnaires assessing demographics, health history, development, and behavior of their children.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, Kindergarten-Eighth Grade Full Sample includes the kindergarten, first, third, fifth, and eighth grade data collections for the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K). Unlike the public-use longitudinal files released in previous rounds, this file contains all data for all ECLS-K sample cases that have been publicly released in any of the rounds. Thus, it can be used for within-year (cross-sectional) analyses of any round of data collection and cross-year (longitudinal) analyses of combinations of rounds. It focuses on children's early school experiences beginning with kindergarten through eighth grade. It is a nationally representative sample that collects information from children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. ECLS-K provides data about the effects of a wide range of family, school, community, and individual variables on children's cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, their early learning and early performance in school, as well as their home environment, home educational practices, school environment, classroom environment, classroom curriculum, and teacher qualifications. The list below summarizes each wave of this study.

• 1998-1999 (the Kindergarten year-Rounds 1 and 2): The ECLS-K child assessments, parent interviews, and teacher questionnaires were conducted in the fall. Children, parents, and teachers participated again in the spring, along with school administrators.

• 1999-2000 (the First grade year-Rounds 3 and 4): The ECLS-K conducted child assessments and parent interviews for a 30 percent sub-sample in the fall. The full sample of children, parents, teachers, and school administrators participated in the spring.

• 2002 (the Third grade year-Round 5): The ECLS-K conducted child assessments and parent interviews in the spring. Teachers and school administrators completed questionnaires.

• 2004 (the Fifth grade year-Round 6): The ECLS-K conducted child assessments and parent interviews in the spring. Teachers and school administrators completed questionnaires.

• 2007 (the Eighth grade year-Round 7): The ECLS-K followed the children into middle school. Information was collected from the children, their parents, teachers, and school administrators.

For more detailed information about this data collection, please refer to the user guide.

The Carolina Abecedarian (ABC) Project and the Carolina Approach to Responsive Education (CARE) projects consist of two consecutive longitudinal studies on the effectiveness of early childhood educational intervention for children at high risk for developmental delays and school failure. Combined, the two studies test the hypothesis that child care, home visit, and home school resource interventions can enhance cognitive and academic outcomes for children at risk for school failure due to factors such as poverty, low maternal IQ, or low parental education. These studies provide the only experimental data regarding the efficacy of child care interventions that began during early infancy and lasted until the child entered kindergarten. In addition, the data allow for tests of the efficacy of intervention during the primary grades.

Research hypotheses include:

1. Within this high-risk sample, early cumulative risk will be negatively associated with young adult educational outcomes, employment outcomes, avoidance of teen parenthood, and avoidance of criminal behavior.
2. Early intervention will moderate the effects of risk such that the effects of increased risk would be weaker for those who received the intervention than for those who did not.
3. The early home environment would mediate any found effects for early risk and that early educational intervention would moderate the effects of the early home environment such that the effects of a poor-quality home environment would be weaker for those who received treatment compared to those who did not.

Further information can be found on the Carolina Abecedarian Project Web site.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) focuses on children's early school experiences beginning with kindergarten through fifth grade. It is a nationally representative sample that collects information from children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. ECLS-K provides data about the effects of a wide range of family, school, community, and individual variables on children's cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, their early learning and early performance in school, as well as their home environment, home educational practices, school environment, classroom environment, classroom curriculum, and teacher qualifications.

With a few exceptions, the fifth grade data file contains all data collected from parents, children, teachers, or schools in the base year (fall and spring), first grade (fall and spring), third grade (spring), and fifth grade (spring) data collections. To streamline the file, however, the data from the household rosters that listed all household members, their relationship to the sampled child, and selected other characteristics are not included in the file. The composite variables describing critical household roster-based information, such as the children's family structure and selected characteristics of the family members, have been retained on the file.

Specific subjects covered by the variables in this data file include parent/child gender, parent/child race, family background, socioeconomic status, household income, parents' education level, and parents' employment and marital status. Other variables include type of childcare and childcare arrangements, the child's math, science, and reading scores, the child's learning problems and autism, as well as the child's diet issues, food security, and school food service. Variables about teachers include age, race, background, qualifications, job satisfaction, their level of impact on curriculum and policy, and time spent on classroom activities and specific subjects. Other variables include diversity of classroom students, parent-teacher discussions, family participation in school events and fundraising, whether the child's school has bars on the windows and doors, fire alarms, sprinklers, and fire extinguishers, the presence of school graffiti, as well as bus/transportation issues.

The Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP) was a multisite, randomized, controlled trial of an educational intervention until three years of age for low birth weight preterm infants born in 1984-1985. There were three components to the intervention: (1) an educational program delivered through home visits (weekly during the first year and every other week during the second and third years of life), (2) a daily center-based program beginning at 12 months corrected for duration of gestation, and (3) parent support groups coinciding with the start of the center-based program. Previously, the subjects were assessed at baseline up to age 3 (Phase I), age 5 (Phase II), and age 8 (Phase III). Phase IV assessed them at age 18.

This data collection contains selected variables from all four phases that were used in analyses reported in two articles by the principal investigators and others:

• McCormick, Marie C., Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Stephen L. Buka, Julie Goldman, Jennifer Yu, Mikhail Salganik, David T. Scott, Forrest C. Bennett, Libby L. Kay, Judy C. Bernbaum, Charles R. Bauer, Camilia Martin, Elizabeth R. Woods, Anne Martin, and Patrick H. Casey. "Early Intervention in Low Birth Weight Premature Infants: Results at 18 Years of Age for the Infant Health and Development Program." Pediatrics 117.3 (2006): 771-780.
• Martin, Anne, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Pamela Klebanov, Stephen L. Buka, and Marie C. McCormick. "Long-term maternal effects of early childhood intervention: Findings from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP)." Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 29 (2008): 101-117.

As such, the collection comprises only some of the variables that were collected for Phase IV and the other phases.

The collection contains information about the children and their mothers/caregivers. Data on the children include treatment group, sex, birth weight group, and an index of neonatal health, plus indices of receptive vocabulary, intelligence, and adult-child activities at age 5, indices of intelligence, receptive vocabulary, reading ability, math ability, and behavioural problems and competencies at ages 8 and 18, and indices of risk behaviors, physical health, future expectations, and engagement towards school at age 18. Information about the mothers/caregivers includes maternal age and mother's race, as well as educational achievement at baseline and ages 5, 8, and 18; smoking at ages 5 and 18; measures of employment, physical health, and mental health at ages 5, 8, and 18; indices of parenting style, educational aspirations for the child, and yelling frequency at the child at ages 8 and 18; and indices of connectedness to the community and involvement with the child's school at age 18. Other variables include measures of home literacy and the presence of televisions in the household at age 5, and indices of family cohesion and conflict at ages 8 and 18.

The ethnographic fieldwork portion of the project - interviews with women of reproductive age, and when available their partners and mothers - was initiated and completed in 2006. For each of four Italian cities (Padua, Bologna, Cagliari, and Naples) studied ethnographically by trained anthropologists, both a working-class and a middle-class neighborhood were identified. These interviews (349 in number) have been transcribed without identifiers. All interviews have been coded and assigned 'attributes' (or nominative variables, such as gender, civil/religious status of marriage, etc.) using the qualitative data analysis software (NVIVO), and these reside in secure electronic project folders. This large body of qualitative interview data is now complete and ready for use across the international collaborative units. Preliminary research reveals the particular significance of family ties in Italy, the fundamental role played by gender systems, and the specific cultural, socio-economic, and politic contexts in which fertility behavior and parenting are embedded.

The Massachusetts Family Child Care study is a two-year evaluation, conducted by Abt Associates Inc, the Manpower Development Research Corporation (MDRC) and the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), of the impacts of the LearningGames program on providers and children in family child care. LearningGames is designed to train caregivers to stimulate children's cognitive, language, and social-emotional development through a set of 200 simple games that encourage intensive, one-on-one interactions as a platform that allows the adult to engage the child in meaningful conversation, to listen to the child and respond to the child's questions and actions, and to scaffold and build on the child's growing skills at using and understanding language. The goal of LearningGames is to increase the frequency of rich language interactions between caregivers and children due to the importance of oral language development in children's understanding of words and concepts, in their ability to become competent readers, and in their long-term academic success and of the role played by rich language stimulation in promoting children's development. This evaluation of LearningGames examines the effectiveness of the program in changing the behavior of the family child care providers and the developmental outcomes for the children who are cared for by providers trained on LearningGames.

Baseline data were collected in the summer of 2005 with follow up observations taking place in the fall of 2006 and again in the winter of 2007. Of the 55 family child care provider networks in Massachusetts, 16 were sampled, resulting in 1,250 children enrolled in 353 study homes, though the study suffered a heavy overall attrition rate of 58 percent.

The data are provided in four data sets, one file containing data on the providers, a baseline observations file and two annual follow ups. The provider file (2005 Provider Data), includes data on: the provider's years of experience in family child care, their reasons for working as a family child care provider, what they would change about their job, what they believe is their responsibility for the children, their educational background, their age, sex, and race, the languages that they speak at home, the languages that they speak with the children in their care, and the types of materials that they read. Due to the descriptive sensitivity of the variables, this dataset requires a signed user agreement to access. All other datasets are publically available. The observation files include data from several measures: the QUEST Caregiver Rating Scale (subset of items), the Arnett Caregiver Interaction Scale, the revised Snapshot of Activities (from the OMLIT), the Read-Aloud Profile (from the OMLIT), and the TALK.The data include: the amount of time the provider shows interest in what children say or do, whether or not the provider seems to enjoy children, the average number of activities observed, the amount of read-alouds where the provider relates the book to group activities prior to reading the book, and whether or not the provider encourages children to do activities on their own.

Early Head Start (EHS) programs are comprehensive, two-generation programs that focus on enhancing children's development while strengthening families. Designed for low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers up to age 3, Early Head Start programs strive to achieve their goals by designing program options based on family and community needs. Programs may offer one or more options to families, including a home-based option, a center-based option, a combination option in which families receive a prescribed number of home visits and center-based experiences, and locally designed options, which in some communities include family child care.

The Early Head Start Research and Evaluation (EHSRE) Study was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) and included five major components: (1) an implementation study; (2) an impact evaluation, using an experimental design; (3) local research studies to learn about pathways to desired outcomes; (4) policy studies to respond to information needs in areas of emerging policy-relevant issues; and (5) continuous program improvement. The study involved 3,001 children and families in 17 sites representing diverse program models, racial/ethnic makeup, urban-rural location, program auspice, and program experience in serving infants and toddlers. Three phases comprise the collection: Birth to Three ("0-3"), Pre-Kindergarten ("PreK") Follow-up and the Elementary School ("G5") Follow-up. A brief description of each phase is provided below:

• Birth to Three Phase (1996-2001): included a cross-site national study that encompassed an Impact Evaluation and Implementation Study that investigated program impacts on children and families through their time in the program as well as site-specific research conducted by local research projects.
• Pre-Kindergarten Follow-up Phase (2001-2005) : built upon the earlier research and followed the children and families who were in the original study from the time they left the Early Head Start program until they entered kindergarten. It was designed to document the long-term consequences of receiving either Early Head Start services or other community services up until age 3 combined with subsequent Head Start or other formal early care and education programs on children's school readiness and parent functioning.
• Elementary School Follow-up Phase (2005-2010): assessed children and families when the children were fifth graders or attending their sixth year of formal schooling. The study included direct assessments of children's cognitive, socio-emotional, and physical development; parent interviews; teacher questionnaires; and videotaping of maternal-child interactions.

The Early Head Start findings are based on a mixture of direct child assessments, observations of children's behavior by in-person interviewers, ratings of videotaped parent-child interactions in standardized ways, ratings of children's behaviors by their parents, and parents' self-reports of their own behaviors, attitudes, and circumstances. Data in this collection were constructed by the Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) researchers for use in their analyses. Very few of the original source variables are present in this public-use file. The constructs came from several data sources:

1. Baseline data, which were collected from the Head Start Family Information System (HSFIS) program application and enrollment forms and the MPR Tracking System. These data contain information on the program status of each case, characteristics of the applicant, mother, and focus child from the MPR Tracking System, summary variables pertaining to all family members, and information on the father, on family circumstances, on the mother's pregnancy, and on the focus child.

2. Parent services follow-up interviews (PSI) targeted for 6, 15, and 26 months after random assignment. These data contain information on use of services both in and outside of Early Head Start, progress toward economic self-sufficiency, family health, and children's health.

3. Parent interviews (BPI) targeted for completion when children were 14, 24, and 36 months old. These interviews obtained a large amount of information from the primary caregivers about their child's development and family functioning. Specific questions asked of parents in the parent interview included items about raising a baby, child's health, household composition, child care, mother figure, father figure, family routines, parents' and parent-child activities, child behavior, and stressful events.

4. Child and family assessments targeted for administration when children were 14, 24, and 36 months old. Field interviewers recorded information from their observations of children's behavior and home environments. Direct child assessments included Bayley Assessments, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Tests (PPVTs), and videotaped semi-structured parent-child interactions.

5. Child care provider interviews and observations targeted for administration when children were 14, 24, and 36 months old. Interview and observation data were collected from child care providers for children who were in child care arrangements that met particular criteria when they were approximately 14, 24 and 36 months old. Different data collection instruments were used for children in child care centers and children cared for by family child care providers or relatives. Data from both types of providers may be used together for some types of analyses.

6. Father interviews targeted for collection when children were 24 and 36 months old. In addition to asking mothers about their child's father, biological fathers and father figures in 12 sites were interviewed directly about fathering issues at the time of the 24- and 36-month birthday-related interviews (but not when children were 14 months old).

Starting with the Family Support Act of 1988, requirements for federal funding stipulate that child care subsidy rates be informed by market rates. In 1990 the federal government began a major investment in child care with the passage of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990. Support of parental choice was a key component of this new block grant program that sent new money to states to support child care. Parental choice and state control of policy remained central when the program was expanded in 1996 as a part of welfare reform legislation. At that time, child care funding became known as the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF).

States are required by the CCDF Final Rule to ensure that families receiving child care assistance have equal access to comparable care purchased by private-paying parents. A market rate survey (MRS) is a tool States use to achieve this program objective. Some States conduct surveys to collect the child care market rate and others use administrative data, such as data collected by child care resource and referral (CCR&R) and State licensing agencies, to analyze the market rate for child care.

This survey was one strategy used to collect child care market price data. Comparing findings garnered from different methods allows one to evaluate whether different data collection methods produce different price findings (convergent validity) and how well these data collection methods represent the child care market (criterion-related validity). These data can also be used to explore several validity issues of concern with market price studies.

The major areas of investigation in this survey include child care prices by type of care, geographic location, and price mode (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly). Other areas of investigation include capacity by age group, additional fees facilities charge, whether they care for subsidized children, and what affects the prices that they charge parents.

Starting with the Family Support Act of 1988, requirements for federal funding stipulate that child care subsidy rates be informed by market rates. In 1990 the federal government began a major investment in child care with the passage of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990. Support of parental choice was a key component of this new block grant program that sent new money to states to support child care. Parental choice and state control of policy remained central when the program was expanded in 1996 as a part of welfare reform legislation. At that time, child care funding became known as the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF).

States are required by the CCDF Final Rule to ensure that families receiving child care assistance have equal access to comparable care purchased by private-paying parents. A market rate survey (MRS) is a tool States use to achieve this program objective. Some States conduct surveys to collect the child care market rate and others use administrative data, such as data collected by child care resource and referral (CCR&R) and State licensing agencies, to analyze the market rate for child care.

This survey was one strategy used to collect child care market price data. Comparing findings garnered from different methods allows one to evaluate whether different data collection methods produce different price findings (convergent validity) and how well these data collection methods represent the child care market (criterion-related validity). These data can also be used to explore several validity issues of concern with market price studies.

The major areas of investigation in this survey include child care prices by type of care, geographic location, and price mode (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly). Other areas of investigation include capacity by age group, additional fees facilities charge, whether they care for subsidized children, and what affects the prices that they charge parents.

Starting with the Family Support Act of 1988, requirements for federal funding stipulate that child care subsidy rates be informed by market rates. In 1990 the federal government began a major investment in child care with the passage of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990. Support of parental choice was a key component of this new block grant program that sent new money to states to support child care. Parental choice and state control of policy remained central when the program was expanded in 1996 as a part of welfare reform legislation. At that time, child care funding became known as the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF).

States are required by the CCDF Final Rule to ensure that families receiving child care assistance have equal access to comparable care purchased by private-paying parents. A market rate survey (MRS) is a tool States use to achieve this program objective. Some States conduct surveys to collect the child care market rate and others use administrative data, such as data collected by child care resource and referral (CCR&R) and State licensing agencies, to analyze the market rate for child care.

This survey was one strategy used to collect child care market price data. Comparing findings garnered from different methods allows one to evaluate whether different data collection methods produce different price findings (convergent validity) and how well these data collection methods represent the child care market (criterion-related validity). These data can also be used to explore several validity issues of concern with market price studies.

The major areas of investigation in this survey include child care prices by type of care, geographic location, and price mode (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly). Other areas of investigation include capacity by age group, additional fees facilities charge, whether they care for subsidized children, and what affects the prices that they charge parents.

For this survey, respondents from three counties in the Detroit, Michigan, area were queried about their health, satisfaction with their health care, end of life decisions, policies about life and death decisions, and experiences with life and death decisions. The first set of questions asked respondents to rate their own health and to indicate whether they had seen a health care professional in the past five years as well as what type of health professional they had seen. They were also asked whether or not they trust the health care provider's judgment on medical decisions and whether they felt that a doctor or family members would follow the respondent's instructions for life sustaining procedures. The survey also explored how satisfied respondents were with the amount of time they spent with their doctor and the doctor's response to questions as well as their honesty and concern for their patient. Additional questions asked respondents how concerned HMO's are with costs and patient health and what their opinions were on how much money is spent on medical technology and care for terminally ill patients. Another set of questions sought respondent's opinions on terminating a patient's life support in a variety of different situations, including the treatment of critically ill infants. The survey also asked whether respondents or their family had ever experienced an end-of-life decision, whether they have discussed end-of-life decisions, and what types of methods they would consider. Respondents were also asked about their attitudes on the death penalty, abortion in certain situations, physician assisted suicide and the 1998 proposal to legalize physician assisted suicide. Background information includes marital status, employment, political orientation, and income.

The Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area Drug Study (DC*MADS) was conducted in 1991, and included special analyses of homeless and transient delivering live births in the DC hospitals. DC*MADS was undertaken to assess the full extent of the drug problem in one metropolitan area. The study was comprised of 16 separate studies that focused on different sub-groups, many of which are typically not included or are underrepresented in household surveys.

The DC*MADS: Drug Use Among Women Delivering Livebirths in DC Hospitals was designed to examine the nature and extent of drug use among women delivering live births in eight Washington, DC, hospitals participating in the study. Data from the questionnaires include prenatal care, health problems during pregnancy, pregnancy drug use history, needle use, polysubstance use, patterns of use, respondent's general experiences with drug use, including perceptions of the risks and consequences of use, occurrence of psychological and emotional problems, income and insurance coverage, treatment experiences, and maternal and infant outcomes. Medical records were abstracted from the women and their infants to document medical problems. Abstracted data on the mothers included demographics, discharge diagnoses, disposition at discharge, and results of urine screens. Abstracted data on infants included delivery information, status at discharge, discharge diagnoses/procedures, and first urine toxicology screen results.

The Healthy Steps for Young Children program began in 1995 as a new approach to primary health care for young children, birth to age three. The program is intended to enhance early pediatric care by incorporating preventive developmental and behavioral services as part of a comprehensive, whole-child, whole-family model of health care and to help provide mothers and fathers with the childrearing information and guidance they seek.

The evaluation of Healthy Steps consisted of three components: the National Evaluation, the Affiliate Evaluation, and the Embedded Observational Study. All data contained in these public release data sets come from the National Evaluation. For additional information on the Affiliate Evaluation or the Embedded Observational Study, please visit http://www.jhsph.edu/WCHPC_/Projects/Healthy_Steps/index.html.

These data were gathered to assess whether the Healthy Steps program was successful in reorienting pediatric practice to emphasize child development issues in increasing parents' knowledge about early nurturing of infants and parents' involvement in their children's development and in promoting parents' practices that improve the health, safety, and health care utilization of their children.

The data are organized as follows:

• Parent Forms: Newborn

  The newborn form was used to gather data on the baby's characteristics, demographic characteristics of the mother, father, and family, prenatal utilization of services, health behaviors of the mother and father, and parents' decisions about a pediatric provider for their newborn.

• Parent Forms: 6 Month

  The 6 month form was used to gather information on selected family demographic characteristics, child's health, parenting practices, and health behaviors of the mother and father. Questions included the frequency of injuries, emergency department visits, and hospitalization in the past 6 months, use of safety devices, activities that promote learning and development, sources of information on speech development, child care arrangements, smoking practices, and mother's receipt of postpartum care.

• Parent Forms: 12 Month

  Like the 6 month form, the 12 month form was used to gather information on selected family demographic characteristics, child's health, parenting practices, and health behaviors of the mother and father. Questions included the frequency of injuries, emergency department visits, and hospitalization in the past 12 months, use of safety devices, activities that promote learning and development, sources of information on speech development, child care arrangements, smoking practices, and mother's receipt of postpartum care.

• Medical Record Abstraction: Vaccinations

  This file contains demographic and vaccination data, including gender, race/ethnicity, and insurance provider.

• Medical Record Abstraction: Medical Visits

  This file contains data abstracted from forms completed for every visit recorded in the medical record or other primary care files, including type visit and whether a physical assessment was conducted.

• Medical Record Abstraction: Referrals/Consultations

  These data are limited to information on any referrals or consultations noted in the child's medical record or other primary care files, including type of and reason for the referral.

• Medical Record Abstraction: Hospitalizations/ED Visits

  These data are limited to information on any hospitalization, emergency department visit, or urgent care visit recorded in the child's medical record or other primary care files, including the type of and reason for the visit.

• Healthy Steps Specialist Contact Logs

  Data contained in this file represent every interaction between Healthy Steps Specialists and the family, including home visits, office visits, telephone calls to or from the family, parent groups, mailings, and other types of contacts, such as hospital visits. Information collected on each contact included the date of contact, type of contact, person contacted, status of the contact, reason for the contact, whether a handout was given out or a referral made during the contact, the issues/ problems discussed during the contact, and any action taken by the Healthy Steps Specialist.

• Parent Interviews: 2-4 Month

  The 2-4 month interview included questions about the respondent's knowledge of child development, his/her sense of competence about childrearing, his/her perception of support for childrearing activities from both formal and informal sources, and his/her engagement in activities with the child that promote health, learning, and development. The interview also gathered information on the socio- demographic characteristics of the family, including the mother's and father's education, marital status, employment, income, and household composition.

• Parent Interviews: 30-33 Month

  The 30-33 month interview is the source of data on parent and child outcomes and assessed the extent to which families received the Healthy Steps intervention. Specifically, parents were asked about utilization of health-related services and about the child's health and progress in reaching age-appropriate developmental milestones, concerns the parent had about the child's development or behavior, and whether the child was referred to services for a behavior or developmentally-related problem. Additional questions addressed parenting activities that promote development, family routines, engagement in safety activities, the mother's general health status, use of substances, use of mental health services, and use of the child's doctor or her obstetrician/gynecologist as a source for discussing problems with depression and use of preventive health care.