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The California Families Project (CFP) is an ongoing longitudinal study of Mexican origin families in Northern California. This study uses community, school, family, and individual characteristics to examine developmental pathways that increase risk for and resilience to drug use in Mexican-origin youth. This study also examines the impact that economic disadvantage and cultural traditions have in Mexican-origin youth. The CFP includes a community-based sample of 674 families and children of Mexican origin living in Northern California, and includes annual assessments of parents and children. Participants with Mexican surnames were drawn at random from school rosters of students during the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school year. Data collection included multi-method assessments of a broad range of psychological, familial, scholastic, cultural, and neighborhood factors. Initiation of the research at age 10 was designed to assess the focal children before the onset of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug (ATOD) use, thus enabling the evaluation of how hypothesized risk and resilience mechanisms operate to exacerbate early onset during adolescence or help prevent its occurrence. This study includes a diversity of families that represent a wide range of incomes, education, family history, and family structures, including two-parent and single-parent families.

The accompanying data file consists of 674 family cases with each case representing a focal child and at least one parent (Two-parent: n=549, 82 percent; Single-parent: n=125, 18 percent). Of the 3,139 total variables, 839 pertain to the focal child, 1,376 correspond to the mother, and 908 items pertain to the father.

Please note: While the California Families Project is a longitudinal study, only the baseline data are currently available in this data collection.

This data collection contains the first four waves of the Iowa Youth and Families Project (IYFP), conducted in 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992. The Iowa Youth and Families Project was developed from an initial sample of 451 7th graders from two-parent families in rural Iowa. The study was merged with the Iowa Single Parent Project (ISPP) to form the Iowa Family Transitions Project in 1994, when the target youth were seniors in high school. Survey data were collected from the target child (7th grader), a sibling within four years of age of the target child, and both parents. Field interviewers visited families at their homes on several occasions to administer questionnaires and videotape interaction tasks including family discussion tasks, family problem-solving tasks, sibling interaction tasks, and marital interaction tasks.

The Household Data files contain information about the family's financial situation, involvement in farming, and demographic information about household members.

The Parent and the Child Survey Data files contain responses to survey questions about the quality and stability of family relationships, emotional, physical, and behavioral problems of individual family members, parent-child conflict, family problem-solving skills, social and financial support from outside the home, traumatic life experiences, alcohol, drug, and tobacco use, and opinions on topics such as abortion, parenting, and gender roles. In addition, the Child Survey Data files include responses collected from the target child and his or her sibling in the study about experiences with puberty, dating, sexual activity, and risk-taking behavior.

The Problem-Solving Data files contain survey data collected from respondents about the family interactions tasks.

The Observational Data files contain the interviewers' observations collected during these tasks.

Demographic variables include sex, age, employment status, occupation, income, home ownership, religious preference, frequency of religious attendance, as well as the ages and sex of all household members and their relationship to the head of household. Demographic information collected on the parents also includes their birth order within their family, the ages and political philosophy of their parents, the sex, age, education level, and occupation of their siblings, and the country of origin of their ancestors.

These surveys of 12th-grade students are part of a series that explores changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of contemporary American youth. Students are randomly assigned to complete one of six questionnaires, each with a different subset of topical questions, but all containing a set of "core" questions on demographics and drug use. There are about 1,400 variables across the questionnaires. Drugs covered by this survey include tobacco, smokeless tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, hashish, prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, LSD, hallucinogens, amphetamines (stimulants), Ritalin (methylphenidate), sedatives/barbiturates, tranquilizers, cocaine, crack cocaine, GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), ecstasy, methamphetamine, and heroin. Other topics include attitudes toward religion, changing roles for women, educational aspirations, self-esteem, exposure to drug education, and violence and crime (both in and out of school).

Highlights for 2019:

• Change in methodology: half of the MTF schools completed in-class surveys on tablets loaded with the survey; the other half completed traditional paper-and-pencil surveys. Also see the Methodology section on this page for an overview and the codebook for details.
• Expansion and revision of the study documentation in the codebook
• New documentation available for download detailing the question adds/drops/changes to the surveys
• Availability of supplemental data sets for previously unreleased questions

Two supplemental data files (DS8 and DS9) have been included this year by the Principal Investigators. These files each include three administrative variables for year (V1), form (V3), and ID (RESPONDENT_ID) along with a few additional variables of survey questions not previously released for Form 5 (DS8) and Form 6 (DS9) between the years 2016 to 2018. These same variables are already present in the main 2019 data files for Form 5 (DS6) and Form 6 (DS7). The front section of the codebook provides details about each of the variables. There are also instructions on how to merge the supplemental data on to the main data files for the previous three years:

• 2018 data (ICPSR 37416)
• 2017 data (ICPSR 37182)
• 2016 data (ICPSR 36798)

This survey of 12th-grade students is part of a series that explores changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of contemporary American youth. Students are randomly assigned to complete one of six questionnaires, each with a different subset of topical questions, but all containing a set of "core" questions on demographics and drug use. There are about 1,400 variables across the questionnaires. Drugs covered by this survey include tobacco, smokeless tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, hashish, prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, LSD, hallucinogens, amphetamines (stimulants), Ritalin (methylphenidate), barbiturates (tranquilizers), cocaine, crack cocaine, GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), ecstasy, methamphetamine, and heroin. Other topics include attitudes toward religion, changing roles for women, educational aspirations, self-esteem, exposure to drug education, and violence and crime (both in and out of school).

Highlights for 2020:

• All students recorded their survey answers on tablets that the project brought to the schools, preloaded with the MTF surveys.
• Data collection was halted prematurely on March 15, 2020 when the University of Michigan stopped all projects that involved face-to-face data collection because of COVID-19 concerns. This resulted in a 2020 sample size about 25% the size of a regular data collection.
• Guidance for combining grades for analysis: see Appendix C of the codebook.
• Information about potential mode effects for questions on student attitudes and beliefs when comparing previous years' paper-based survey responses to the current tablet method of collection. Please see the codebook Introduction - Survey Mode section for details.

This survey of 12th-grade students is part of a series that explores changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of contemporary American youth. Students are randomly assigned to complete one of six questionnaires, each with a different subset of topical questions, but all containing a set of "core" questions on demographics and drug use. There are about 1,400 variables across the questionnaires. Drugs covered by this survey include tobacco, smokeless tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, hashish, prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, LSD, hallucinogens, amphetamines (stimulants), Ritalin (methylphenidate), Quaaludes (methaqualone), barbiturates (tranquilizers), cocaine, crack cocaine, GHB (gamma hydroxy butyrate), ecstasy, methamphetamine, and heroin. Other topics include attitudes toward religion, changing roles for women, educational aspirations, self-esteem, exposure to drug education, and violence and crime (both in and out of school).

Highlights for 2021:

• Data collection resumed in 2021, with a change to all web-based surveys.
• Students completed the surveys on their personal or school-provided device.
• Non-survey variables have been changed or added to facilitate analyses. For details, please see the codebook section "MTF Variable Information - Non-survey variables included in the data files - Survey mode and design variables for 2021"
• Information about "screen break" issues, where series of questions were originally presented differently in the web-based survey as compared to the 2019/2020 tablet surveys. Please see the codebook and Appendix D for details.
• For 12th grade: two additional changes to the survey presentation. Please see the codebook section "MTF Variable Information - Non-survey variables included in the data files", and respective appendices for details.
• Introduction of randomized blocks of questions presented to students. Please see Appendix E.
• Test of presentation of items in the substance use consequences section on form 3. Please see Appendix F.
• Additional information is documented in the MTFQchanges2021byForm.pdf and MTFQchanges2021byType.pdf files available for download.

This survey of 12th-grade students is part of a series that explores changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of contemporary American youth. Students are randomly assigned to complete one of six questionnaires, each with a different subset of topical questions, but all containing a set of "core" questions on demographics and drug use. There are about 1,400 variables across the questionnaires. Drugs covered by this survey include tobacco, smokeless tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, hashish, prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, LSD, hallucinogens, amphetamines (stimulants), Ritalin (methylphenidate), Quaaludes (methaqualone), barbiturates (tranquilizers), cocaine, crack cocaine, GHB (gamma hydroxy butyrate), ecstasy, methamphetamine, and heroin. Other topics include attitudes toward religion, changing roles for women, educational aspirations, self-esteem, exposure to drug education, and violence and crime (both in and out of school).

Highlights for 2022:

• Continuation of randomized blocks of questions presented to students. Please see Appendix D of the codebook.
• Change to the question stem for some lifetime, 12 month, and 30 day heroin and marijuana use questions. Please see the Highlights for 2022 section in the codebook for more details.
• Change to the heroin use questions: Separate questions about heroin use with a needle and heroin use without a needle for lifetime, past 12 months, and past 30 day timeframes are no longer asked. The separate questions have been replaced by the single question, "On how many occasions (if any), have you taken heroin...
  • ...in your lifetime?
  • ...during the last 12 months?
  • ...during the last 30 days?

Additional information is documented in the MTFQchanges2022byForm.pdf and MTFQchanges2022byType.pdf files available for download.

This survey of 12th-grade students is part of a series that explores changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of contemporary American youth. Students are randomly assigned to complete one of six questionnaires, each with a different subset of topical questions, but all containing a set of "core" questions on demographics and substance use. There are about 1,400 variables across the questionnaires. Substance use covered by this survey includes: tobacco, smokeless tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, hashish, vaping, prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, LSD, hallucinogens, amphetamines (stimulants), Ritalin (methylphenidate), sedatives/barbiturates (tranquilizers), cocaine, crack cocaine, GHB (gamma hydroxy butyrate), ecstasy, methamphetamine, and heroin. Other topics include attitudes toward religion, changing roles for women, educational aspirations, self-esteem, exposure to drug education, and violence and crime (both in and out of school).

Highlights for 2023:

• 12th grade only: Continuation of randomized blocks of questions presented to students. Please see Appendix D of the codebook.
• All grades: Change to the question stem for some lifetime, 12 month, and 30 day marijuana use questions.
• Separate codebooks are generated by ICPSR for the core data file (DS1) and the six form-specific data files (DS2-DS7). The codebooks contain only the frequencies, question text, and response options for the survey items. Please see the documentation under DS0 Study-Level Files for the annual study documentation provided by MTF, 39172-0001-User_guide-UsersGuide.pdf.

Please see the Highlights for 2023 section in the codebook for more details.

Additional information is documented in the MTFQchanges2023byForm.pdf and MTFQchanges2023byType.pdf files available for download.

This survey of 12th-grade students is part of a series that explores changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of contemporary American youth. Students are randomly assigned to complete one of six questionnaires, each with a different subset of topical questions, but all containing a set of "core" questions on demographics and substance use. There are about 1,400 variables across the six questionnaires. Substance use covered by these surveys includes tobacco, smokeless tobacco, alcohol, marijuana/cannabis, prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, inhalants, steroids, LSD and other hallucinogens, amphetamines (stimulants), sedatives/barbiturates, tranquilizers, cocaine, crack cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine, heroin, narcotics other than heroin, and vaping of nicotine, marijuana/cannabis, and flavors. Other topics include attitudes toward religion, changing roles for women, educational aspirations, self-esteem, exposure to drug education, and violence and crime (both in and out of school).

Highlights for 2024:

• The MTF sampling procedure was updated in 2024. Please see the 2024 MTF annual report for details. Variable-specific details are found in the user's guide that accompanies this study.
• Continuation of randomized blocks of questions presented to students. Please see Appendix D of the user's guide.
• In 2023, the question about use of Delta-8 THC was included only on forms 3 and 6. In 2024, this question is now included on all survey forms. With the inclusion on all forms, please note these variable name changes:
  • CORE: V2934 was changed to V7976
  • Form 3: V3660 was changed to V7976
  • Form 6: V6676 was changed to V7976
• Changes were made to the question stems for many of the substance use "triplets", i.e. lifetime, 12 month, and 30 day timeframes, including: marijuana/cannabis, hallucinogens other than LSD, amphetamines (stimulants), sedatives/barbiturates, tranquilizers, and narcotics other than heroin.
• Additional information about question text and response option changes, along with details about added and dropped questions, are documented in the MTFQchanges2024byForm.pdf and MTFQchanges2024byType.pdf files available for download.
• MTF is no longer providing dichotomized substance use variables on the DS1 datasets. As each researcher has their own method of working with data, it is up to the researcher to create these variables for their specific needs.