Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS) (ICPSR 35197)

Version Date: Sep 12, 2024 View help for published

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Robert J. Ursano, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; Murray B. Stein, University of California-San Diego; Ronald C. Kessler, Harvard University; Steven G. Heeringa, University of Michigan; James Wagner, University of Michigan

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35197.v10

Version V10 ()

  • V10 [2024-09-12]
  • V9 [2024-07-23] unpublished
  • V8 [2023-10-19] unpublished
  • V7 [2020-08-27] unpublished
  • V6 [2020-07-20] unpublished
  • V5 [2020-02-20] unpublished
  • V4 [2019-12-02] unpublished
  • V3 [2019-10-10] unpublished
  • V2 [2018-12-03] unpublished
  • V1 [2017-03-23] unpublished
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July 23, 2024: STARRS - Biosample Flags and Administrative data released

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The Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS) is an extensive study of mental health risk and resilience among military personnel. Army STARRS consists of eight separate but integrated epidemiologic and neurobiologic studies. Survey data for three of the Army STARRS study components are available via Secure Dissemination or via the ICPSR Virtual Data Enclave: New Soldier Study (NSS); All Army Study (AAS) and Pre-Post Deployment Study (PPDS). Also available are data for the STARRS-Longitudinal Study (STARRS-LS), which are follow-up surveys conducted with Army STARRS participants from AAS, NSS and PPDS studies. Lastly, baseline administrative data from the Army/Department of Defense (DoD) and blood sample flags for Soldiers who had blood drawn as a part of their participation in NSS or PPDS are available.

The AAS component of Army STARRS assesses soldiers' psychological and physical health, events encountered during training, combat, and non-combat operations, and life and work experiences across all phases of Army service. The AAS data includes data on soldiers' psychological resilience, mental health, and risk for self-harm.

The NSS data are drawn from new soldiers who have just entered the Army. The data contain information on soldier health, personal characteristics, and prior experiences. Results from a series of neurocognitive tests are also included in the NSS data.

The PPDS data are drawn from active duty soldiers who were interviewed at four points in time: 3-4 months prior to deployment to Afghanistan; within 1-2 weeks after return from deployment; 1-3 months after return from deployment; and 9-12 months after return from deployment. The PPDS data contain information on soldiers' psychological resilience, mental health, deployment experiences, and risk for self-harm.

The STARRS-LS data are from multiple follow-up interviews with individuals who previously participated in the AAS, NSS and PPDS study components of Army STARRS. STARRS-LS data contain follow-up information on soldiers' and veterans' physical and mental health, resilience and risk for self-harm, military and employment status, deployment experience, and personal characteristics as they move through their Army careers and after they leave the Army.

Ursano, Robert J., Stein, Murray B., Kessler, Ronald C., Heeringa, Steven G., and Wagner, James. Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS). Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-09-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35197.v10

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United States. Department of the Army. Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health. National Institute of Mental Health (U01MH87981 (2009-2015)), United States. Department of Defense. Uniformed Services University of the Health Services. (HU-0001-15-2-0004 (2015-2025))

The Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS) is restricted from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Applicants may request access via Secure Dissemination or via ICPSR's Virtual Data Enclave (VDE). Those requesting VDE access will be required to pay an access fee.

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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2011 -- 2022
2011-05 -- 2013-03 (AAS), 2011-04 -- 2012-11 (NSS), 2012-01 -- 2014-04 (PPDS), 2016-09 -- 2018-04 (STARRS-LS Wave 1), 2018-04 -- 2019-07 (STARRS-LS Wave 2), 2020-11 -- 2022-10 (STARRS-LS Wave 3)
  1. Note to authors who publish analyses of STARRS data:

    When you publish secondary analyses of these data, you must formally cite the data in your publication's References section using the following citation:

    Ursano, Robert J., Murray B. Stein, Ronald C. Kessler, Steven G. Heeringa, and James Wagner. Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS). ICPSR35197-v10. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-09-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35197.v10

    You also must include the following paragraph in the Acknowledgements section of your publications:

    This publication is based on public use data from the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS). The data are available from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan (https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35197.v10). The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the STARRS investigators, funders, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

  2. For additional information on the Army STARRS project, please visit the Army STARRS Web site.

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The Army STARRS project was conducted to identify factors that help protect a soldier's mental health and factors that put a soldier's mental health at risk.

Active duty regular Army, activated or deactivated Guard and Reserve, separated or retired regular Army, Guard, and Reserve servicemembers who have previously participated in an Army STARRS study.

Individual
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2015-07-01

2024-09-12 The User Guide was updated to resolve formatting issues and clarify available access mechanisms.

2024-07-23 Additions: Army/DoD administrative data table (Dataset 12), biosample flags were added to the Master Respondent ID Linkage Table (Dataset 3), and User Guide updates to document the new data set. Also, with the addition of administrative data to the collection, disclosure risk remediation has been implemented for datasets 1, 2, 5, and 7 through 12. Write formats have been corrected for several neurocognitive variables in Dataset 2.

2023-10-19 Additions: LSW3 data, related study documentation, STARRS Respondent Crosswalk, and updates to the User Guide to document new data set. Dataset 3, Master Respondent ID Linkage Table, was also updated.

2020-08-27 The User Guide was updated to resolve formatting issues.

2020-07-20 Additions: LSW2 data, related study documentation, STARRS Respondent Crosswalk, and updates to the User Guide to document new data set. Dataset 3, Master Respondent ID Linkage Table, was also updated, as were 5 diagnostic variables in dataset 9, Longitudinal Study Wave 1.

2020-02-20 Online variable search capabilities have been added for this study.

2019-12-02 Additions: LSW1 data and related study documentation, including STARRS Respondent Crosswalk for LSW1. Updates: universe, updated DOI and release dates in relevant documentation.

2019-10-10 Additions: PPDS data, related study documentation, STARRS Respondent Crosswalk, and updates to the User Guide to document new data sets.

2018-12-03 Neurocognitive test scores have been added to Dataset 2, and responses for some IDs have been masked in both datasets at the request of the data producers. The User Guide was updated as well. The data and documentation have been updated accordingly.

2018-05-24 Updated Funding, as well as Acknowledgements section in the Data Collection Notes and downloadable PDF documents.

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:

  • Ursano, Robert J., Murray B. Stein, Ronald C. Kessler, Steven G. Heeringa, and James Wagner. Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS). ICPSR35197-v10. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-09-12. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35197.v10

2017-03-23 2015-07-02 updated documentation covers

2015-07-01 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Analysis of Army STARRS/STARRS-LS study data requires the use of weights to correct for differential probabilities of selection as well as nonresponse. To conduct weighted analyses, AAS (Dataset 1) contains weight variable, WGT_AAS, and NSS (Dataset 2) contains weight variable, WGT_NSS. For the PPDS studies (Datasets 5, 6, 7, and 8), a table called PPDS_WEIGHTS (Dataset 4) contains weights for various combinations of participation in each wave of PPDS data collection. Finally, STARRS-LS Wave 1 (Dataset 9) contains weight variable WEIGHT_LSW1_NORM, STARRS-LS Wave 2 (Dataset 10) contains weight variable WEIGHT_LSW2_NORM, and STARRS-LS Wave 3 (Dataset 11) contains weight variables WEIGHT_LSW3_NORM and WEIGHT_LSW3_WITH_LSW2_NORM (for respondents who completed both LSW2 and LSW3 surveys). Weights provided for each study can be applied in analysis of the AAS, NSS, PPDS, STARRS-LS Wave 1, STARRS-LS Wave 2, and STARRS-LS Wave 3 survey data. For information on survey weights, please see the Analysts' Guide for Weighted Estimation and Design-based Inference section of the ICPSR User Guide.

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.