The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is a program of studies designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. An ongoing annual survey combines interviews and physical examinations. The NHANES interview includes demographic, socioeconomic, dietary, and health-related questions. The examination component consists of medical, dental,...

The University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is a longitudinal panel study that surveys a representative sample of more than 26,000 Americans over the age of 50 every two years. The HRS explores the changes in labor force participation and the health transitions that individuals undergo toward the end of their work lives and in the years that follow, collecting information about income,...

The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) are a set of surveys conducted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to gather information at multiple points in time on the labor market activities and other significant life events of several cohorts of men and women. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NSLY) consists of the NLSY79 cohort (nationally-representative sample of 12,686 14-22 year olds)...

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7-12 in the United States during the 1994-1995 school year. Add Health combines longitudinal survey data on respondents' social, economic, psychological and physical well-being with contextual data on the family, neighborhood, community, school, friendships,...

The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study is following a cohort of nearly 5,000 children born in large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000, roughly three-quarters of whom were born to unmarried parents. The study consists of interviews with both mothers and fathers at birth and again when children are ages one, three and five, plus in-home assessments of children and their home environments at ages...

The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study is a prospective longitudinal epidemiological study conducted in four communities: Forsyth County (North Carolina), Jackson (Mississippi), Minneapolis (Minnesota), and Washington County (Maryland). ARIC is designed to investigate the causes of atherosclerosis and its clinical outcomes, and variations in cardiovascular risk factors, medical care,...

The Framingham Heart Study (FHS) is an ongoing cohort study dedicated to identifying common factors or characteristics that contribute to cardiovascular disease (CVD). It is a collaborative project of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and Boston University. In 1948, an original cohort of 5,209 men and women between 30 and 62 years old were recruited from Framingham, MA. An Offspring Cohort...

The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) is a longitudinal national health study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) that focuses on strategies for preventing heart disease, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and osteoporotic fractures in postmenopausal women in the United States. The study includes data from 161,808 women aged 50-79 years old at the time of enrollment. Available...

The Nurses' Health Studies (NHS) are long-running, questionnaire-based studies on women's health. The study was initiated in 1976 with the NHS cohort. The initial studies focus on cancer, cardiovascular disease and risk factors for chronic health issues in women. The latest cohort, NH3, has been expanded to include both male and female registered nurses and nursing students. Survey and biospecimen...

The Consortium of Hospitals Advancing Research on Tobacco (CHART) is a network of six projects and a coordinating center aimed at assessing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions initiated during hospitalizations and continued post-discharge. The CHART New York Smoking-Cessation Interventions for Urban Hospital Patients trial looked at the effectiveness of a pro-active,...