Search results

The National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A) was designed to estimate the lifetime-to-date and current prevalence, age-of-onset distributions, course, and comorbidity of DSM-IV disorders in the child and adolescent years of life among adolescents in the United States; to identify risk and protective factors for the onset and persistence of these disorders; to describe patterns and correlates of service use for these disorders; and to lay the groundwork for subsequent follow-up studies that can be used to identify early expressions of adult mental disorders.

The core NCS-A interview schedule was an adaptation of the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). NCS-A also administered the non-verbal subtest (Matrices subtest) of the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT).

In addition to interviewing adolescents, information was collected from a parent or a parent surrogate to obtain an additional perspective on the adolescent's mental health and its correlates. Information from parents focused on the five adolescent disorders for which previous methodological research has most consistently shown that parental reports are important for making diagnoses: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, major depressive episode, and dysthymic disorder.

Demographic information collected by NCS-A includes age, citizenship status, country of birth, criminal history, ethnicity, grandparents' country of birth, language(s) spoken in the home, parents' country of birth, race, religion, and sex.

The data collection contains six data files: (1) data for the adolescent household and school respondents; (2) data for the parents who responded to the long self-administered questionnaire; (3) data for the parents who responded to both the long self-administered questionnaire and short telephone interview; (4) diagnostic variables derived from the data collected from the adolescents and parents; (5) K-BIT scores normed to the NCS-A adolescent sample; and (6) raw K-BIT data.

The Schools and Families Education (SAFE) Children Study was a randomized control trial designed to test the efficacy of a family-based comprehensive preventive intervention, with children living in inner-city Chicago and entering the 1st grade, for effects on key risk markers for later drug and other substance use.

A total of 11 waves of data were collected over the course of three phases and approximately 13 years. In the spring of 1997, there were 424 kindergarten students and primary caregivers recruited to participate in this study. Wave 1 began while the children were in 1st grade. These data contain survey responses for students, their primary caregivers, and their teachers across 27 datasets.

Phase I of the study was to assess the intervention provided in the 1st grade. Half of the families were randomly selected to receive the intervention. The other half were assigned to the control group. Phase II of the study was set-up to give half of the intervention group a booster, a second intervention training. Lastly, there was a Phase III which sought to assess the long-term affects of the initial and booster interventions.

The first dataset (DS1) provides an overview of the study which includes variables for the study design and survey administration. This first file contains 38 variables.

Survey responses were obtained from students nine times beginning in 1st grade and ending in 12th grade. Children were not surveyed in waves 3 and 7. The student survey response data are in DS2 through DS10. The datasets for waves 1, 2, 4, and 5 contain only 50 variables. Waves 6, 8, and 9 contain 424 variables. Waves 10 and 11 contain 1,394 variables. Each of the three phases contain almost identical variables within their respective waves.

The children's primary caregivers were also surveyed nine times over the survey period. Primary caregivers were not surveyed in waves 3 and 7. These data are contained in DS11 through DS19. The primary caregiver files vary in the number and content of variables. On average each wave contains about 1,060 variables with a low of 470 on up to a high of 1,435.

Teachers were surveyed during each of the first eight waves of the study. The teacher data are in DS20 through DS27. Waves 1 and 2 contain just over 120 variables. Waves 3, 4, and 5 contain 145 variables. And waves 6, 7, and 8 contain 173 variables. Each of the three phases contain almost identical variables within their respective waves.

The Social Capital and Children's Development data were collected in a study of the causal effects of social capital on levels and inequalities of children's social and cognitive development during the early elementary years. The study included 52 schools in Phoenix and San Antonio, including 3,084 first graders and their families, and over 200 teachers, with half the schools randomly selected for the intervention and half serving as controls. Children from low-income Latino families were a special focus of the study. The experimental design of this study allowed for testing of the causal role of social capital. Social capital here refers to trust and shared expectations embedded in social networks of parents, teachers, and children. For young children, social capital operates primarily through their relationships with their parents, enhancing development through mechanisms of social support and social control.

The research design was experimental: social capital was manipulated through a well-tested randomized intervention, Families and Schools Together (FAST), that enhanced social capital among parents, teachers, and children through an intensive after-school program and a 2-year follow-up program. FAST is intended to reduce parental isolation, enhance family engagement with schools, and strengthen family functioning; that is, to increase social capital between families and schools, among families, and within families to improve children's education and life-long outcomes. Key aspects of child development were assessed, including (a) social skills and problem behavior from standardized behavioral ratings by parents and teachers, and (b) grade retention, attendance rates, and third-grade reading and mathematics scores from school records. Social capital was measured with repeated surveys of teachers and parents that address the extent of social networks, parent involvement, trust, and shared expectations among parents, between parents and schools, and between parents and children. Demographic variables of this study include native language, years in the United States, date of birth/age, race/ethnicity, gender, and household composition.

The Women's Employment Study, or "WES" combined the insights of poverty researchers, epidemiologists, and social workers by analyzing the ways in which a broad range of labor market, mental health, physical health, and family problems affect a welfare recipient's ability to obtain and retain employment over time.

WES initially began in the Fall of 1997, and five waves of the survey were completed by early 2004, with a high proportion of the original panel sample retained throughout the study.

The unique aspects of WES rest largely with the broad range of barriers it measures, and the longitudinal nature of the study that allows researchers to look at employment and welfare experiences over time.