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

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

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

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

The Generations study is a five-year study designed to examine health and well-being across three generations of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGB). The study explored identity, stress, health outcomes, and health care and services utilization among LGBs in three generations of adults who came of age during different historical contexts. This collection includes baseline, wave 1, and wave 2 data collected as part of the Generations study.

The study aimed to assess whether younger cohorts of LGBs differed from older cohorts in how they viewed their LGB identity and experienced stress related to prejudice and everyday forms of discrimination, as well as whether patterns of resilience differed between different LGB cohorts. Additionally, the study sought to examine how differences in stress experience affected mental health and well-being, including depressive and anxiety symptoms, substance and alcohol use, suicide ideation and behavior, and how younger LGBs utilized LGB-oriented social and health services, relative to older cohorts.

In wave 2, respondents were re-interviewed approximately one year after completion of the baseline (wave 1) survey. Only respondents who participated in the original sample of participants were surveyed at wave 2 (i.e., the enhancement oversample was not included in the longitudinal design of this study).

In wave 3, respondents were re-interviewed approximately one year after the completion of the wave 2 survey.

Demographic variables collected as part of this study include questions related to age, education, race, ethnicity, sexual identity, gender identity, income, employment, and religiosity.

The Health and Relationship Project is a longitudinal study of both spouses in same-sex and different-sex marriages who were legally married and aged 35 to 65 at Time 1 of data collection (2014-2015). Time 2 data were collected in 2021-2022 and Time 3 data were collected in 2024-2025.

At each time, both spouses completed a baseline questionnaire and a daily diary questionnaire (which was completed for 10 consecutive days); both components were completed online and spouses were asked to complete the surveys separately. The baseline questionnaire asks participants about a number of topics related to marriage and health, including stress, health status and health behaviors, relationship quality, and how they have approached health problems in the past. The diary questionnaire asks participants a number of questions about the past 24 hours, including daily stress experiences, social interactions, and health behaviors.

This survey of adult management tasks began in 1995 as part of a larger national project (MIDUS) to investigate the patterns, predictors, and consequences of midlife development in the areas of physical health, psychological well-being, and social responsibility. Conducted in Boston, the survey was designed to examine how adults manage tasks in three domains of life -- work, family, and health. Further goals were to describe the subjective experience of goal attainment in midlife and to link it with objective measures of short-term longitudinal changes and cognitive functioning. During the national study, the Boston area was intentionally oversampled in order to create a subset to be used for in-depth study of management processes in midlife.

The Boston study began six months after the national study, and consisted of three interviews: a 30-minute phone interview followed by a 20-minute mail questionnaire (Time 1), a 90-minute in-person combination of cognitive tests, cortisol testing, photograph taking, and interview (Time 2), and a 30-minute phone interview (Time 3), conducted at six-month intervals. The focus was on projects related to family, work, and health that participants were working on during the period of the study. Each successive interview investigated participants' assessments of their progress in the present, recollection of six months in the past, and prediction six months into the future. Two waves of data collection were completed for this study. There were 151 respondents who participated in the first wave, 151 respondents who participated in both waves, and 26 additional respondents who participated in the second wave of data collection.

At Time 1, participants generated a list of two important family, work, and health tasks, then chose one of each as the most important in that domain. For each of the most important tasks, questions were asked about deadlines, whether participants were doing tasks because they had to do them, felt that they should do them, or chose to do them, and whether participants were doing tasks for themselves, others, or both. All six projects were ranked according to importance, and participants divided all their time into percentages spent on family, work, and health. The majority of questions on the mail questionnaire at Time 1 were taken from the Midlife Development Inventory (MIDI), the instrument created for the national study.

Respondents were asked to rate their control over health, to make assessments about present, past, and future health, to list any serious illnesses, and to indicate their physical health status. Study participants also rated their mental health, and discussed stressful life events in the last six months for self, spouse/significant other, parents, and children. Other questions focused on depression, mastery and constraints, community involvement, family, work, and life satisfaction. Scales used included the Ryff Well-Being Scales, the Eysenck Personality Inventory, the Staudinger and Baltes Wisdom Scale (1995), and the Ways of Coping Scale.

Time 2 was done in-person, and included a 50-minute series of cognitive tests followed by a 40-minute interview. The cognitive testing consisted of nine measures of cognitive ability completed in the following order: WAIS Forward Digit Span, WAIS Backward Digit Span, WAIS Vocabulary, counting backwards test, letter comparison test, dual-task test involving the counting backwards and letter comparison tests, WAIS Digit Symbol, Schaie-Thurston Letter Series, and Raven's Advanced Progressive Ma Matrices.

The Time 2 interview began with a series of questions asking about each of the family, work, and health tasks elicited from the participants in Time 1. Many questions were repeated from the MIDI including rating physical health, family life, work situation, and life overall, rating physical and mental health from poor to excellent, and a measure of stressful life events in the last six months for self, spouse/significant other, parents, and children. Participants were asked to rate how old they felt and how old they looked and to indicate their total yearly household income. Lastly, a series of open-ended questions asked about best and worst aspects of family, work, and health, how participants managed their daily life, the most challenging aspect of life and how it was managed, and what participants found most helpful in carrying out their daily life. Photographs were taken of participants at the conclusion of the interview.

Time 3 asked again about each of the most important family, work, and health tasks elicited from the participants in Time 1. Newly developed questions asked participants about ideas related to middle age, including when the participant believed middle age begins and ends, whether the participant was younger than, in, or older than middle age, the biggest changes in middle age, the best and worst aspects of middle age, whether the participant knew anyone who had had a "midlife crisis," and whether he or she would have or had had a midlife crisis. Participants were asked to rate how often they had problems and how often things went well with respect to a list of 26 domains, and how much stress and how much control they had in these domains. Lastly, participants were asked whether they had ever returned to a degree-oriented educational program after being out of school for five or more years, whether they were presently taking classes to further their education, and whether being a participant in the study had influenced the ways they thought about their family, work, and health projects.

The MIDUS Refresher Daily Diary Project (aka National Study of Daily Experiences or NSDE) contains data from 782 respondents. The purpose of the Daily Stress Project was to examine how sociodemographic factors, health status, personality characteristics, and genetic endowment modify patterns of change in exposure to day-to-day life stressors as well as physical and emotional reactivity to these stressors.

The primary aims were:

1. To describe how the links between multiple aspects of daily stressors (e.g., frequency, content, severity) and daily physical and emotional well-being change over ten years during adulthood;
2. To examine how sociodemographic factors and personality characteristics influence change in both exposure to as well as changes in physical and emotional reactivity to daily stressors;
3. To investigate how exposure and reactivity to daily stressors correlate with physiological indicators of physical health and predict changes in global health reports; and
4. To explore the relative genetic and environmental influences mediating change in exposure and physical and emotional reactivity to daily stressors throughout adulthood.

The Daily Diary study is comprised of a subsample of the MIDUS (Midlife in the United States) Refresher, a national survey of nearly 3,600 Americans (aged 25 to 75) conducted during 2011-2014. The MIDUS Refresher survey was designed to replenish the original MIDUS 1 baseline cohort and allow the examination of period effects on health (mental and physical) related to the economic recession by comparing the pre-recession MIDUS 1 sample with the post-recession MIDUS Refresher sample. Guiding hypotheses, at the most general level, were that behavioral and psychosocial factors are consequential for health (physical and mental).

Demographic variables in this collection include sex and age.

The Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study (SEBAS) in Taiwan, 2000 and 2006, provides information regarding the health and well-being of older persons in Taiwan. Taiwan has undergone rapid demographic, social, and economic changes, becoming a highly urbanized and industrial society with a growing population of persons age 65 or older. SEBAS explores the relationship between life challenges and mental and physical health, the impact of social environment on the health and well-being of the elderly, as well as biological markers of health and stress. The study collected self-reports of physical, psychological, and social well-being, plus extensive clinical data based on medical examinations and laboratory analyses. Examination of health outcomes included chronic illnesses, functional status, psychological well-being, and cognitive function. Questions regarding life challenges focused on perceived stress, economic difficulties, security and safety, and the consequences of a major earthquake. Biological markers were used to identify cardiovascular risk factors, metabolic process measures, immune-system activity, the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis, and sympathetic nervous system activity. Two rounds of biomarker data collected in 2000 and 2006 were complemented by face-to-face interviews with the participants. Demographic and background variables included age, sex, education, ethnicity, occupation, and residency.

Additional information about the Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study can be found at the Georgetown University Center for Populations and Health Web site.

A Webinar describing the Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study (SEBAS) was presented June 20, 2016. All interested users can access the webinar here.

Since 2007, the American Psychological Association (APA) has commissioned an annual nationwide survey as part of its Mind/Body Health campaign to examine the state of stress across the country and understand its impact. The Stress in America survey measures attitudes and perceptions of stress among the general public and identifies leading sources of stress, common behaviors used to manage stress and the impact of stress on our lives. The results of the survey draw attention to the serious physical and emotional implications of stress and the inextricable link between the mind and body.

From 2007 to 2024, the research has documented this connection among the general public as well as various sub-segments of the public. Each year, the Stress in America surveys aims to uncover different aspects of the stress/health connection via focusing on a particular topic and/or subgroup of the population. Below is a list of the focus of each of the Stress in America surveys.

• 2007-2018 Cumulative Dataset
• 2007 General Population
• 2008 Gender and Stress
• 2009 Parent Perceptions of Children's Stress
• 2010 Health Impact of Stress on Children and Families
• 2011 Our Health Risk
• 2012 Missing the Health Care Connection
• 2013 Are Teens Adopting Adults' Stress Habits
• 2014 Paying With Our Health
• 2015 The Impact of Discrimination
• 2016 Coping with Change, Part 1
• 2016 Coping with Change, Part 2: Technology and Social Media
• 2017 The State of Our Nation
• 2018 Stress and Generation Z
• 2019-2024 Cumulative Dataset
• 2019 Stress and Current Events
• 2020 COVID Tracker Wave 1
• 2020 COVID Tracker Wave 2
• 2020 COVID Tracker Wave 3
• 2020 A National Mental Health Crisis
• 2021 Pandemic Anniversary Survey
• 2021 Stress and Decision-Making During the Pandemic
• 2022 Pandemic Anniversary Survey
• 2022 Concerned for the Future, Beset by Inflation
• 2023 A Nation Recovering From Collective Trauma
• 2024 A Nation in Political Turmoil

The Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) is a multi-site longitudinal, epidemiologic study designed to examine the health of women during their middle years. The study examines the physical, biological, psychological, and social changes during this transitional period. The goal of SWAN's research is to help scientists, health care providers and women learn how mid-life experiences affect health and quality of life during aging. The data include questions about doctor visits, medical conditions, medications, treatments, medical procedures, relationships, smoking, and menopause related information such as age at pre-, peri- and post-menopause, self-attitudes, feelings, and common physical problems associated with menopause.

The study is co-sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health. The study began in 1994. Between 1997 and 1999, 2,881 of the 3,302 women that joined SWAN were seen for their first follow-up visit. The research centers are located in the following communities: Detroit, MI; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Oakland and Los Angeles, CA; Newark, NJ; and Pittsburgh, PA. SWAN participants represent five racial/ethnic groups and a variety of backgrounds and cultures.

The Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), is a multi-site longitudinal, epidemiologic study designed to examine the health of women during their middle years. The study examines the physical, biological, psychological, and social changes during this transitional period. The goal of SWAN's research is to help scientists, health care providers, and women learn how mid-life experiences affect health and quality of life during aging. The data include questions about doctor visits, medical conditions, medications, treatments, medical procedures, relationships, smoking, and menopause related information.

The study is co-sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health. The study began in 1994. Between 1999 and 2001, 2,710 of the 3,302 women that joined SWAN were seen for their third follow-up visit. The research centers are located in the following communities: Detroit, Michigan; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Oakland and Los Angeles, California; Newark, New Jersey; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. SWAN participants represent five racial/ethnic groups and a variety of backgrounds and cultures.

The Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA) projects began in 2002 with the goal of understanding risk and protective factors, including genetics, for cognitive and brain aging starting in midlife. This NIH funded longitudinal study has completed three waves of data collection (2002-2008; 2008-2014, 2015-2020) following the same group of non-patient, community dwelling male veteran twins from when they were average age 56 to average age 68. A fourth wave of data collection began in October 2021. Although the men are American veterans, this is not a VA sample. This is a nation-wide sample with participants flown into sister data collection sites at either University of California San Diego or Boston University.

The VETSA study encompasses multiple linked grants and data collections with two studies funded continuously since 2002--The VETSA Longitudinal Twin Study of Cognition and Aging and The VETSA Longitudinal MRI Twin Study of Aging. Because of the broad interests of the investigators, while study data focus most heavily on in-person cognitive testing, a wide array of psychosocial, demographic, medical history, physical functioning, and personality measures were also collected. While some measures were only collected at baseline, the majority are repeated at every data collection.

At each wave of data collection, participants completed a lengthy psychosocial questionnaire at home then came to the testing site for a full day (~8 hrs) of in-person testing. Participants were housed for either 2 nights if only part of VETSA aging or 3 nights if they qualified for the MRI data collection.