National Family Violence Survey, 1985

Investigators: Murray A. Straus and Richard J. Gelles

The 1985 National Family Survey was conducted by Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire and explores conflict/resolution and violence in the family. It is a national cross-sectional survey which can be compared to a similar study conducted by the investigators in 1975 (available separately). The Survey was designed to show that physical violence between family members is more frequent than believed. One objective of the 1985 survey was to generate comparisons of the incidence of intra-family physical violence by race and ethnicity. Another objective was to generate state-by-state estimates of family violence. Topics in the study include: demographics (household characteristics/composition, race, income, religion, education, etc.); marital/divorce history; marital behavior (conflict/violence and resolution); employment (history, status); and satisfaction/attitudes about various aspects of life.

National Health Interview Survey on Child Health, 1988

Investigators: National Center for Health Statistics

The 1988 National Health Interview Survey on Child Health (NHIS-CH) was conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), and cosponsored by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development and the Health Resources and Services Administration. The U. S. Census Bureau directed field work for the survey. The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is a continuous, cross-sectional survey representing the household population of the United States. Each year the NHIS collects basic health and demographic information by face-to-face interview with a sample of about 122,000 family members in about 47,000 families. Typically, different households are sampled each year. For the 1988 NHIS-CH, additional information was collected for one randomly selected child 0-17 years of age in each NHIS sample household. Topics covered in the 1988 NHIS-CH interview included child care, marital history of the child's parents, geographic mobility, circumstances of the pregnancy and birth, injuries, impairments, acute conditions, chronic conditions, passive smoking, sleep habits, school problems, developmental problems, and use of health care services. Some of the same topics were included in the 1981 NHIS on child health, permitting trend analyses. Other special health topic questionnaires administered in 1988 resulted in public use data files that can be linked to the NHIS-CH. Those topics included alcohol use and occupational health, both asked of a sample adult in the family. Those data sets are available from NCHS. It should be noted that the health characteristics described by NHIS estimates pertain only to the resident, civilian non-institutionalized population of the United States living at the time of the interview. The sample does not include persons residing in nursing homes, members of the armed forces, institutionalized persons, or U.S. nationals living abroad

National Long Term Care Survey: 1982, 1984, 1989

Investigators: Center for Demographic Studies United States Department of Health and Human Services Health Care Financing Administration

The National Long Term Care Survey is a longitudinal study designed to provide information about the population of chronically disabled elderly persons in the United States. It was the first major nationally representative survey that dealt explicitly with the health and functional problems of the disabled elderly who live in the community, the formal and informal home long term care options available to meet the problems of the impaired elderly, and the ability to interchange home and institutional services for a specific population. The first three waves of interviews (1982, 1984, and 1989) were conducted with nationally representative sample of 30,308 persons age 65 or over who reported having a chronic functional impairment, defined as being unable to perform an activity of daily living (ADL) or an instrumental activity of daily living (IADL) for three months or more. Data were collected on a number of topics including cognitive ability, medical conditions, problems and help received for ADLs and IADLs, housing, health insurance, medical providers, income and assets, and personal characteristics. In addition, the 1989 wave collected extensive data from informal caregivers, unpaid caregivers who help the sample person with ADL or IADL activities. Topics covered in the survey of informal caregivers included demographic and social characteristics of the caregiver, the relationship between the caregiver and the impaired person, the kinds of care provided, expense and time costs to the caregiver, inconveniences and problems of the caregiver, work restrictions due to caregiving, and the caregivers feeling about caregiving.

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, Waves I & II (ADD Health), 1994-1996

Investigators: J. Richard Udry and Peter Bearman

The National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) was mandated by Congress to collect data for the purpose of measuring the impact of social environment on adolescent health. It examines the general health and well-being of adolescents in the United States, including, with respect to these adolescents, (1) the behaviors that promote health and the behaviors that are detrimental to health; and (2) the influence on health of factors particular to the communities in which adolescents reside. Some of the dependent variables include diet and nutrition, eating disorders, depression, violent behavior, intentional injury, unintentional injury, suicide, exercise, health service use, and health insurance coverage. Add Health data were collected in two waves. Wave I (collected between September, 1994 and December, 1995) includes three sets of data available for public use. The in-school data was collected from students grades 7 through 12 and consists of responses to questions about social and demographic characteristics of the respondents, the education and occupation of parents, household structure, risk behaviors, expectations for the future, self-esteem, health status, friendships, and school-year extracurricular activities. The in-home dataset consists of responses to a detailed and lengthy interview of a subset of adolescents who were selected from the rosters of the sampled schools. Finally, the Parent data were collected from one parent or parent-figure for each In-home sampled student. Wave II of the Add Health data (collected from April, 1996 through August, 1996) consists of the in-home adolescent follow-up interviews.

National Survey of Children: Waves 1, 2 and 3, 1976-1987

Investigators: Nicholas Zill, James L. Peterson, Kristin A. Moore, and Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr.

A three-wave longitudinal study was carried out by the Foundation for Child Development in 1976 (Wave 1) and by Child Trends, Inc. in 1981 and 1987 (Waves 2 and 3) in which the child was the focus of a personal interview with parents and children themselves. The purpose of Wave 1 was to assess the physical, social, and psychological well-being of different groups of American children; develop a profile of the way children live and the care they receive; permit analysis of the relationships between the condition of children's lives and measures of child development and well-being; and replicate items from previous national studies of child and parents to permit analysis of trends over time. Wave 2 focused on the effects of marital conflict and disruption on children. The third wave of data examined the social, psychological, and economic well-being of sample members as they became young adults. Further, for the first two waves, a teacher from the child's school answered questions on the child's academic performance and atmosphere.

National Survey of Families and Household, 1992

Investigators: J. Sweet, et al.

The National Survey of Families and Households Wave 2 1992-1994 is a five-year follow-up to the original interview, Wave 1, conducted during 1987 and 1988. The National Survey of Families and Households is a national sample survey that covers a wide variety of issues on American family life. A considerable amount of life history information was collected, including the respondents family living arrangements in childhood, the experience of leaving the parental home, marital and cohabitation experience, as well as education, fertility, and employment histories. These data permit the detailed description of past and current living arrangements and other characteristics and experience, as well as the analysis of the consequences of earlier patterns on current states, marital and parenting relationships, kin contact, and economic and psychological well-being.

National Survey of Families and Households, 1988

Investigators: James Sweet, Larry Bumpass, and Vaughn Call

The National Survey of Families and Households 1988 is a national survey designed to look at the causes and consequences of changes in American family and household structure. It was designed to address the limitations of previous studies on the same topic by focusing almost exclusively on family issues, covering a broad range of family variables, addressing issues of importance to researchers working from a variety of theoretical perspectives, sampling a large enough group to permit subgroup comparisons and reliable statistical estimation, and selecting a sample representative of the total U.S. population. The sample includes a main cross-section sample of 9,643 households plus a double sampling of blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, single-parent families and families with stepchildren, and cohabiting or recently married couples. The survey was designed to permit not only the testing of competing hypotheses concerning a variety of aspects of the American family, but also the description of the current state of the family. It was also designed to be the first round of a longitudinal design, while providing a cross-sectional look at American family life. Survey questions covered a wide variety of topics, including, for example, basic demographic information, life history information, family process, effects of divorce, and child custody and child support arrangements following divorce.

National Survey of Family Growth, Cycle V, 1995

Investigators: National Center for Health Statistics

This is the fifth in a series of periodic surveys of women 15-44 years of age. Previous surveys were conducted in 1973, 1976, 1982, and 1988 with a telephone reinterview of the 1988 respondents in 1990. Topics covered in previous interviews included the month and year of first intercourse; pregnancy, contraceptive, marital, and cohabitation histories, employment and occupation, child care, fecundity and sterility, prenatal medical care, family planning services, birth expectations, ethnicity, education, religion, and income. For Cycle 5, event histories of education, living arrangements during childhood, and work have been added, along with complete marital and cohabitation histories, and sexual partner histories for 5 years prior to the interview. The survey also included, for the first time in 1995, characteristics of male partners, new items on consistency of contraceptive use, new questions on pregnancy wantedness, and a computer-assisted selfadministered section containing questions on sensitive topics such as abortion and forced intercourse. The overall objective of the NSFG is to supplement the vital statistics of fertility and of family formation and dissolution, with more detailed data on the "intermediate variables" which shape these trends and on the health and socioeconomic contexts in which they occur. The uses of the data gathered in the NSFG are broad, though mostly in the health and demographic fields. The 1995 NSFG obtained detailed information on factors affecting childbearing from a national probability sample of women 15 to 44 years of age. The purpose of the survey is to produce national estimates and an information base on factors affecting pregnancy including sexual activity, contraceptive use, infertility, and sources of family planning services and the health of women and infants. For Cycle 5, interviewing and data processing were conducted by the Research Triangle Institute, under a contract with NCHS.

National Survey of Self-Care and Aging, 1990-1994

Investigators: Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research

The National Survey of Self-Care and Aging (NSSCA) is a population-based, national longitudinal survey of noninstitutionalized Medicare beneficiaries. It employed a multistage stratified random sample design to represent the population of noninstitutionalized U.S. Medicare beneficiaries at least 65 years of age in 1990. The objective of the baseline survey, conducted between 1990 and 1991, was to develop a national database on self-care behaviors practiced by noninstitutional elderly adults. A follow-up survey was conducted in 1994, to continue examination of the health status and self-care practices of individuals who were interviewed at baseline.

National Survey of the Japanese Elderly: Wave 1, 1987

Investigators: Institute of Gerontology Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology

The National Survey of the Japanese Elderly (NSJE) is a longitudinal study conducted in Japan by the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Michigan (IoG) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology (TMIG). The first wave of the study was conducted in 1987 and collected data on a nationally representative sample of non- institutionalized Japanese aged 60 years and older. Subsequent Waves 2, 3, and 4 have followed in 1990, 1993, 1996 respectively. The original Wave 1 survey was designed to create a panel dataset for use in cross-cultural analyses of aging in Japan and the United States. The subsequent waves were created to match Wave 1 as closely as possible, while also allowing for growth in specific areas of interest. In addition, the surveys were designed to be partially comparable in content with Americans' Changing Lives: Waves 1, 2, 3, and 4, 1986, 1989, 1994, and 1996 and the National Health Interview Survey, 1984: Supplement on Aging. The survey has nine sections: demographics (age, gender, marital status, education, employment), social integration (interpersonal contacts, social supports), health status (limitations on daily life and activities, health conditions, level of physical activity), subjective well-being and mental health status (life satisfaction, morale), psychological indicators (life events, locus of control, self-esteem), financial situation (financial status), memory (measures of cognitive functioning), and interviewer observations (assessments of respondents).