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Asthma is one of the nation's most common and costly chronic conditions, affecting over 38 million Americans at some time in their lives. Managing asthma requires a long term, multifaceted approach, including patient education, behavior changes, asthma trigger avoidance, pharmacological therapy, and frequent medical follow-up. This study provides asthma data available at the state and local level to direct and evaluate interventions undertaken by asthma control programs located in the state health departments. Improved tracking for asthma is critical for planning and evaluating efforts to reduce the health burden from the disease.

The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is a state-based system of health surveys that collects information on health risk behaviors, preventive health practices, and health care access primarily related to chronic disease and injury. For many states, the BRFSS is the only available source of timely, accurate data on health-related behaviors. BRFSS was established in 1984 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); currently data are collected monthly in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, and Guam. More than 350,000 adults are interviewed each year, making the BRFSS the largest telephone health survey in the world. States use BRFSS data to identify emerging health problems, establish and track health objectives, and develop and evaluate public health policies and programs. The BRFSS is a cross-sectional telephone survey conducted by state health departments with technical and methodological assistance provided by CDC. States conduct monthly telephone surveillance using a standardized questionnaire to determine the distribution of risk behaviors and health practices among adults. Responses are forwarded to CDC, where the monthly data are aggregated for each state, returned with standard tabulations, and published at the year's end by each state. The BRFSS questionnaire was developed jointly by CDC's Behavioral Surveillance Branch (BSB) and the states. Data derived from the questionnaire provide health departments, public health officials, and policymakers with necessary behavioral information. When combined with mortality and morbidity statistics, these data enable public health officials to establish policies and priorities and to initiate and assess health promotion strategies. Demographic variables include race, age, sex, education level, marital status, employment status, and income level.

The Chicago Community Adult Health Study (CCAHS) consists of four interrelated components that were conducted simultaneously: (1) a survey of adult health on a probability sample of 3,105 Chicago adults, including direct physical measurements of their blood pressure and heart rate and of height, weight, waist and hip circumference, and leg length; (2) a biomedical supplement which collected blood and/or saliva samples on a subset of 661 survey respondents; (3) a community survey in which individuals described aspects of the social environment of all survey respondents' neighborhoods; and (4) a systematic social observation (SSO) of the blocks in which potential survey respondents resided, including a lost letter drop (Milgram et al. 1965) as an unobtrusive measure of neighborhood social capital/sense of responsibility to help others. The latter two extend a community survey and SSO of neighborhoods carried out by the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) in 1995. The adult health survey and the community survey were conducted jointly through face-to-face interviews with a stratified, multistage probability sample of 3,105 individuals aged 18 and over and living in the city of Chicago, with a response rate of 72 percent that is about the highest currently attainable in large urban areas. In addition, blood pressure, heart rate, and physical measurements (of height, weight, waist and hips, and leg length) were collected during the survey interview, and blood and saliva samples from 661 respondents or 60 percent of those doing the survey in the 80 "focal" neighborhood clusters (NCs). SSOs were conducted on 1,663 of the 1,672 city blocks on which each respondent lived. The CCAHS is the largest of five projects under the NIH-funded Michigan Interdisciplinary Center on Social Inequalities, Mind and Body Mind (#P50HD38986), one of five Mind-Body Centers funded by the National Institutes of Health in late 1999. This study will advance the understanding of socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in health, a major priority of the Public Health Service and the National Institutes of Health.

The PI-supplied summary mentions that the study is comprised of four components. However, for the purposes of this data release there are three distinct datasets. Demographic variables include age, birth year, race, ethnicity, number of children in the household, number of children living elsewhere, number of times the respondent has been married, and relationship status, religious preference, and sex.

The Health and Life Study of Koreans (HLSK) was conducted as a part of the study, "Empirical Assessment of Respondent Driven Sampling from Total Survey Error Perspectives" supported by the National Science Foundation. The larger study aimed to examine the operational and inferential properties of respondent driven sampling (RDS). HLSK applied RDS using a web survey, to examine the health of foreign-born Korean-American adults living in Los Angeles County or the State of Michigan. It should be noted that the literature on analysis of RDS data is not fully established, and there is less than clear empirical evidence illustrating the fit of using RDS for population-level inferences. Hence, data users are advised to exercise extreme caution in making population-level inferences.

This study uses existing questions from established surveys such as the American Community Survey (ACS), Kessler survey of psychological distress, and the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). The Main Survey covers topics like socio-demographics, physical and mental health, healthcare utilization, religiosity, political engagement, psychosocial traits, and racial/ethnic identity. The Follow-up Survey and Restricted Data focuses on RDS sampling questions and allows users to examine the relationships between recruiters and their recruits. Additionally, the Follow-up Survey and Restricted Data includes variables that contain sensitive information such as multi-racial identity, citizenship status, and physical health characteristics.