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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 Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS, formerly known as the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study) follows a cohort of nearly 5,000 children born in large, U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000. The study oversampled births to unmarried couples; and, when weighted, the data are representative of births in large U.S. cities at the turn of the century. The FFCWS was originally designed to address four questions of great interest to researchers and policy makers:

1. What are the conditions and capabilities of unmarried parents, especially fathers?
2. What is the nature of the relationships between unmarried parents?
3. How do children born into these families fare?
4. How do policies and environmental conditions affect families and children?

The FFCWS consists of interviews with mothers, fathers, and/or primary caregivers at birth and again when children are ages 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, and 22. The parent interviews collected information on attitudes, relationships, parenting behavior, demographic characteristics, health (mental and physical), economic and employment status, neighborhood characteristics, and program participation. Beginning at age 9, children were interviewed directly (either during the home visit or on the telephone). The direct child interviews collected data on family relationships, home routines, schools, peers, and physical and mental health, as well as health behaviors.

A collaborative study of the FFCWS, the In-Home Longitudinal Study of Pre-School Aged Children (In-Home Study) collected data from a subset of the FFCWS Core respondents at the Year 3 and 5 follow-ups to ask how parental resources in the form of parental presence or absence, time, and money influence children under the age of 5. The In-Home Study collected information on a variety of domains of the child's environment, including: the physical environment (quality of housing, nutrition and food security, health care, adequacy of clothing and supervision) and parenting (parental discipline, parental attachment, and cognitive stimulation). In addition, the In-Home Study also collected information on several important child outcomes, including anthropometrics, child behaviors, and cognitive ability. This information was collected through interviews with the child's primary caregiver, and direct observation of the child's home environment and the child's interactions with his or her caregiver.

Similar activities were conducted during the Year 9 follow-up. At the Year 15 follow-up, a condensed set of home visit activities were conducted with a subsample of approximately 1,000 teens. Teens who participated in the In-Home Study were also invited to participate in a Sleep Study and were asked to wear an accelerometer on their non-dominant wrist for seven consecutive days to track their sleep (Sleep Actigraphy Data) and that day's behaviors and mood (Daily Sleep Actigraphy and Diary Survey Data).

An additional collaborative study collected data from the child care provider (Year 3) and teacher (Years 9 and 15) through mail-based surveys. Saliva samples were collected at Year 9 and 15 (Biomarker file and Polygenic Scores). The Study of Adolescent Neural Development (SAND) COVID Study began data collection in May 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It included online surveys with the young adult and their primary caregiver.

The FFCWS began its seventh wave of data collection in October 2020, around the focal child's 22nd birthday. Data collection and interviews continued through January 2024. The Year 22 wave included a young adult (YA) survey with the original focal child and a primary caregiver (PCG) survey. Data were also collected on the children of the original focal child (referred to as Generation 3, or G3).

In 2017, the FFCWS team announced the Fragile Families (FF) Challenge, a collaborative effort in which participants were tasked with using machine learning methods and FFCWS data (Baseline to Year 9) to build a model that would predict six key outcomes at Year 15. Materials used in the FF Challenge have been archived in this collection.

Documentation for these files is available on the FFCWS website under Data and Documentation. For details of updates made to the FFCWS data files, please see the project's Data Alerts page.

Data collection for the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers R01HD36916, R01HD39135, and R01HD40421, as well as a consortium of private foundations.

Below is the citation for use of the FFCWS data accessed through ICPSR. For information on additional citation requirements when using FFCWS in publications, please refer to this FAQ on the FFCWS project site.

The Iowa Adoption Studies were conducted between 1975 and 2008. The group of studies consist of 5 independent waves of data collection each of which examined genetic (biological) and environmental influences on psychopathology. The adoption paradigm allowed separation of genetic and environmental influences on behavior, as well as joint influences due to gene x environment interaction. Adoptees were interviewed about lifetime psychopathology including substance abuse and dependence, antisocial personality, and mood disorders. A follow-up study was conducted from 2000-2004 that recruited all previous participants and natural offspring of the adoptive parents when available. Standardized psychiatric assessments were administered along with measures of personality disorders and traits, retrospective reports on childhood experiences with adoptive parents, and current symptomatology. An extensive neurocognitive assessment was conducted on a subset of participants who had standardized school achievement scores. The goal of this last wave of assessment was to evaluate the influence of substance use on mid-life cognition and health.

The respondents were assessed using a number of different surveys over the study period. The following describes the notable variables as well as descriptions of the surveys included in the dataset.

The first variables in the dataset identify sibling pairs and provides data on whether the respondents' biological parents suffered from mental health or substance abuse issues. Next birth records are provided that give basic information about the health of the person when he or she was born. This information is followed by the survey results of "The Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality" (SNAP) as well as variables that reflect the diagnosis of personality disorders and nonadaptive personality traits based on the SNAP survey responses.

The next section includes responses from "The Iowa Personality Disorder Screen," a quick personality disorder screen developed in 1999 intended for use in clinical and research settings.

Next, responses to Pearson Assessments "Brief symptoms inventory" are included as well as the scores calculated based on these survey responses. The results of this survey assess the mental state of the patient including scales on Somatization, Obsessive-Compulsive, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Depression, Anxiety, Hostility, Phobic Anxiety, Paranoid Ideation and Psychoticism.

The respondents also completed the "Buss-Durkee Hostility Questionnaire" and were assessed on measure regarding the following hostility traits: negativism, resentment, indirect hostility, assault, suspicion, irritability and verbal hostility.

Reponses to the "The Social Provisions Scale" survey are also included. The purpose of this survey is to assess the relationship the respondents have to other people. The 6 social provisions assessed include: guidance, reliable alliance, reassurance of worth, attachment, social integration, and opportunity for nurturance.

"The Parental Bonding Instrument" instrument was utilized to assess the respondents' relationships to their mothers and fathers.

A series of cognitive tests were administered to respondents. ICPSR is unable to provide the survey instruments used in the cognitive test due to copy write issues. These tests include:

Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT)

North American Adult Reading Test (NAART)

Rey Figure and Rey Complex Figure Test and Recognition Trial (RCFT)

Shipley Institute of Living Scale (SILS)

Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT)

Tower of Hanoi (TofH)

Comprehensive Trailmaking Test (CTMT)

Weschler Adult Intelligence Test (WAIS)

Weschler Memory Test (WMS)

The dataset also includes respondents' results of the Comprehensive Performance Test (CPT) and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)

Scores from the "Iowa Test of Basic Skills," a test of academic achievement that evaluates students knowledge in subjects including, mathematics, reading comprehension, and science, are included in the dataset. Respondents are evaluated in grades 4, 8 and 11.

The final section of the dataset includes two waves of the "Semi Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Alcoholism," a survey intended to assess the physical, psychological, and social manifestations of alcohol abuse. These survey responses make up the bulk of the dataset and include variables on a variety of topics including: demographics, medical history, substance use, eating disorders, depression, dysthymia, mania, ASP, suicide, PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, OCD, social phobia, agoraphobia, panic disorder, home environment, gambling, and ADHD. Substances use investigated includes alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, sedatives, stimulants, cocaine, opiates, solvents, hallucinogens, and other drugs.

This dataset includes 934 cases and 9,370 variables.

Established in 1995, the Northwestern Juvenile Project assessed alcohol, drug, or mental (ADM) service needs of juvenile detainees. The study took place between the years of 1995 and 1998, sampling 1,829 male and female juvenile detainees within Cook County, Illinois. This study had two specific aims:

1. To assess the juvenile detainees ADM service needs (including psychiatric disorder, comorbidity and functional impairment); and,
2. To determine the extent that juvenile detainees who need ADM services received them while in the custody of the criminal justice system.

This study has four methodological advantages over prior research:

1. Stratified random sampling;
2. Sufficiently large N (approximately 600 females and 1200 males);
3. Reliable instruments; and
4. Comorbidity data.

Questions for respondents generally pertain to demographics, medical and sexual history, criminal history, aptitude and mental health assessment, familial and social relations, drug abuse, and education.

The World Health Organization (WHO)'s Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) is a longitudinal follow-up of a cohort of ageing and older adults. SAGE has been built on the experience and standardized instruments of WHO's 2000/2001 Multi-country Survey Study (MCSS) and the 2002/2004 World Health Surveys (WHS).

These surveys focused on health and health-related outcomes and their determinants and impacts in nationally representative samples. These data will address data gaps on ageing, adult health and well-being in lower and middle income countries, whilst being comparable to surveys conducted in higher income countries (such as the United States' Health and Retirement Study (HRS), English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)). One of the major drivers of this effort has been the lack of comparability of self-reported health status in international health surveys due to systematic biases in reporting, despite using similar instruments and attempts at making questions conceptually equivalent in translation. SAGE uses standard instruments developed over the last decade, a common design and training approach with explicit strategies for making data comparable to cover a wide range of issues that directly and indirectly impact health and well-being.

The survey methodology and research design has included a number of methods to address methods for detecting and correcting for systematic reporting biases in health interview surveys, including vignette methodologies, objective performance tests and biomarkers. A number of techniques have also been employed to improve data comparability, including using common definitions of concepts, common methods of data collection and translations, rigorous sample design and post hoc harmonization. The 2007-2010 SAGE Wave 1 data from six countries (China, Ghana, India, Mexico, Russia, and South Africa) is the follow-up survey project to the 2002-2004 WHO data, which constitutes Wave 0 of WHO's Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE). A sample of these respondents from SAGE Wave 0 are included in this follow-up 2007-2010 SAGE Wave 1 in the six countries, with new respondents added to ensure a nationally representative sample.