We are thrilled to report that the National Institute on Aging, with support from several co-funding NIH institutes, has funded the Wave VII project, which will collect survey, cognitive, home exam, contextual, and administrative data from consenting Add Health participants. Wave VII data collection is slated to begin in summer of 2027 and last through late 2029. Wave VII data are scheduled for dissemination in 2030 and 2031. The Add Health team looks forward to working on the data collection effort and will continue to keep interested parties updated through this newsletter, our website, and conference attendance. As always, we look forward to collecting data that will shed light on the health, social life, and aging of our nationally representative cohort of adults.
Previous research shows that parent-set bedtimes help lower adolescents’ risk of important cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. However, there is a gap in the research regarding whether this practice affects CVD risk factors later in life. Using nationally representative data from Waves I and IV of Add Health, researchers examined the effects of three parent-set bedtime categories (10:00 PM, 11:00 PM, and midnight) during adolescence on CVD risk later in life, with sleep health as a potential mediating factor in this association. CVD risk was calculated using a 30-year Framingham Risk Score derived from age, sex, smoking status, diabetes status, antihypertensive medication use, systolic blood pressure, and body mass index. Sleep health was assessed using self-reported sleep duration and insomnia symptoms, which were combined into a composite sleep health score.
Of the 4,151 participants, 38% slept fewer than the recommended number of hours, 10% reported insomnia symptoms, 28% had parent-set bedtimes at or after 11:00 PM, and 18% had no set bedtime. Adolescents with parent-set bedtimes at or after midnight, or with no set bedtime, were more likely to go to bed after midnight, have shorter sleep durations, and fall into the high CVD risk category in adulthood (20%). Sleep health partially mediated this relationship. This study highlights the importance of parent-set bedtimes, emphasizing that earlier bedtime enforcement may support adolescents’ sleep health and reduce their future CVD risk. Read the full article here.
Addo PNO, Liese AD, Zhang J, Weaver G, Brown MJ (2025) Parent-set bedtime in adolescence is associated with future cardiovascular disease risk: Evidence from the Add Health study. PLOS ONE 20(12): e0339044. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339044
Each year at their annual meeting, the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) sponsors a friendly competition among teams of early-career researchers. Named for two of the founders and long-time active members of SPR, Dr. Zili Sloboda and Dr. William Bukoski, the competition charges teams of scientists to develop a research question, analyze a selected dataset, and present their work at the annual meeting. This year, the SPR Cup chose Add Health as its dataset for competition.
The competition included four teams from Penn State, UT Austin, University of Florida, and a cross-institution team with members from University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, SUNY Buffalo, and Ohio State. Teams shared their findings using Waves I-VI of the Add Health public use data at the annual meeting to a panel of expert judges, including Add Health Co-Director Lauren Gaydosh.
Congratulations to the team from the University of Florida – named the PreventiGators – who won first place. Their project examined how positive childhood experiences influence suicidal behavior trajectories among immigrant youth in the United States.
Team members: Paola Sullivan, PhD student, Doctoral Program in Youth Development and Family Sciences, Zixiao Yang, PhD student, Doctoral Program in Youth Development and Family Sciences, Xiaoyang Jin, PhD student, Doctoral Program in Youth Development and Family Sciences, Mariana Rebello, PhD student, Doctoral Program in School Psychology, Matthew Peterson, Master student, Master Program in Family, Youth, and Community Sciences , Indy Hurun Ein, PhD student, Doctoral Program in School Psychology
Mentors: Xiaoya Zhang, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences , Shanting Chen, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
Widespread persistent infections have been found to elicit chronic immune activation, with implications for the body’s immune system and biological functions as people age. Using nationally representative data from Waves IV and V of Adult Health, Jennifer Momkius et al. investigated whether these associations extend earlier into adulthood and whether they are linked to four specific persistent infections: cytomegalovirus (CMV), herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), Epstein–Barr virus (EBV), and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). The persistent infections were measured at a median age of 28 using infection status and antibody concentrations obtained from collected blood samples. The outcome, predictors of biological aging, including biomarkers of cellular immunosenescence and biological age acceleration, was assessed using the GrimAge, PhenoAge, and DunedinPACE clocks, as well as DNA methylation-based immune cell ratios.
Findings showed strong positive associations between CMV infection exposure and antibody concentrations and both predictors of biological aging. HSV-1, EBV, and H. pylori demonstrated more limited associations and were linked only to biological age acceleration, not to immune-related outcomes. As the first study to examine these relationships among younger, nationally representative adults, these findings suggest that persistent infections, especially CMV, shape biological aging before midlife. Earlier interventions, such as vaccination or improved living conditions, may help mitigate long-term health disparities and immune dysfunction. Read the full article here.
Jennifer Momkus, Kathleen Mullan Harris, Jessie K Edwards, Yang Claire Yang, Chantel L Martin, Allison E Aiello, A Pathogen Penalty? Associations Between Persistent Infections and Biological Aging in the US, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2025;, jiaf606, https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiaf606
Few scholars have shaped the sociology of population as profoundly as Kathleen Mullan Harris. As Director and Principal Investigator of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) from 2004 to 2021, and through her continuing leadership of the Add Health Parent Study, Kathie built one of the nation’s most consequential population health data infrastructures. Add Health has supported more than 5,000 peer-reviewed publications and hundreds of dissertations.
Across her career, she has secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in research funding, and her 200+ publications integrate biological, behavioral, social, and contextual determinants of health. Her research has documented persistent health disparities by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and immigrant status, and helped pioneer the study of gene-environment interactions in population health.
Her service to the field is equally distinguished: President of the Population Association of America, Chair of the Committee on Population of the National Academies, and Chair of the National Academies consensus study on rising midlife mortality. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the AAAS.
Through her research, her leadership, and the data infrastructure she has helped build, Kathie Mullan Harris has shaped the work of generations of population health scholars. Kathie will receive her award at the upcoming ASA meeting in August. For more information about the award, visit the ASA website.
Research shows that social determinants of health significantly impact disparities in cardiometabolic diseases, like diabetes, but most of this research does not examine positive determinants. Chen et al. in JAMA Network Open analyzed whether volunteering, as a positive determinant, is associated with metabolic syndrome and diabetes across two different samples of Black adolescents from low-income backgrounds. The second sample consisted of nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), across Wave III and VI between 1994 and 2008. Volunteering was assessed using a binary response on if they regularly participated in volunteer or community service work. Diabetes was assessed using blood spots collected.
The findings of roughly 1,000 Black adolescents revealed that those who volunteered as adolescents had lower odds of developing diabetes in adulthood. Overall, the study reveals that positive aspects of social determinants of health, like volunteering, are critical in health disparity outcomes. This study prompts further research on the role of volunteering and its positive outcomes for both the recipients of these efforts and the volunteers themselves
To read the full article, click the link below. For more important findings using Add Health data, visit the Add Health publications page.
Add Health is excited to announce the following data are now available:
Wave VI Inflammation and Immune Function: This file contains constructed measures designed to facilitate analysis and interpretation of inflammation and immune function based on venous blood collected via phlebotomy at the Wave VI home exam. Assay results include High Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hsCRP) and several cytokines (IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, TNFα). In addition, there are constructed measures for counts of subclinical symptoms and common infectious or inflammatory diseases, concentration flags for all cytokines, as well as various anti-inflammatory medication use flags.
The following additional data are also available:
Altitude & Solar Irradiation: These data include elevation and quarterly measures of solar irradiance and irradiation at geocoded Add Health respondent addresses.
Meteorology: These data include daily meteorological measures at geocoded Add Health respondent addresses.
For additional recently released datasets, please visit the File Inventory. These data are only available to users with SRW or Home Institution contracts. The files are already available on the SRW and will be available soon to Home Institution users. For more information on the SRW and Home Institution contract options, please visit the Restricted-Use Contract Options page.
Smoking behavior among adolescents is influenced by their social networks. Using data from two high schools with different network structures in Add Health, Wang et al. examine how peer influence spreads and weakens as it moves through friendship networks. By simulating interventions aimed at reducing smoking by targeting different groups of students, the study measures both direct effects on targeted students and indirect spillover effects across the wider network, focusing on how influence decays across multiple degrees of separation and how this depends on network structure and intervention strategy.
Findings reveal how targeting a small share of highly connected students produces the strongest overall impact, with in-degree and eigenvector targeting consistently outperforming random selection, especially at 10-30% coverage. However, benefits level off at higher coverage levels (around 40–50%) due to network saturation, where most individuals have already been reached directly or indirectly. This study highlights the importance that context matters and policies should cater towards the density structure of social networks.
To read the full article, click the link below. For more important findings using Add Health data, visit the Add Health publications page.
Wang C, Butts C, Hipp J, Lakon C. Peer influence decay and behavioral diffusion in adolescent networks: A simulation approach. Science. Published online April 30, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aea9297
Add Health is pleased to be at the Population Association of America’s Annual Meeting this week. Throughout the conference, researchers using Add Health data will be sharing their work in a wide range of sessions and poster presentations. To view the full list of presentations, please see the link below, or visit the Add Health booth (#209) during exhibit hall hours.
The following data is now available from Add Health:
Wave VI Baroreflex Sensitivity and Hemodynamic Recovery This file contains constructed measures for baroreflex sensitivity, heart rate recovery, and systolic blood pressure recovery for the Wave VI respondents.
Wave VI Home Exam Health & Quality Control Metrics This file contains data collected during the Wave VI home exam that may be useful to investigators, but that is not included in other Wave VI user guides or codebooks. This data includes respondent provided general health metrics, as well as several measures of quality control related to the home exam. These QC metrics encompass various time intervals dealing with the home exam blood collection, shipping and receiving of blood samples, blood plasma and serum tube conditions, and assay times at the Laboratory for Clinical Biochemistry Research (LCBR).
Wave VI Infection This file contains constructed measures designed to facilitate analysis and interpretation of infection based on venous blood collection via phlebotomy at the Wave VI home exam. These measures include results for Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) and Cytomegalovirus (CMV). Several SARV-CoV-2 measures are also described, including Nucleocapsid, Receptor Binding Domain (RBD), and Spike Concentration types.
Wave VI Mover Distance The dataset provides the distance, in meters, between each respondent’s home residence in each of the previous waves and their Wave VI residence.
Wave I, II, III, IV, V & VI Grouping Data The dataset contains location identifiers, based on 2020 Census block group FIPS codes, for all six Add Health waves. They are longitudinally consistent across all waves.
For additional recently released datasets, please visit the File Inventory.
These data are only available to users with SRW or Home Institution contracts. The files are already available on the SRW and will be available soon to Home Institution users. For more information on the SRW and Home Institution contract options, please visit the Restricted-Use Contract Options page.
