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Thank you to all our amazing staff, presenters, moderators, and attendees for making the 2022 Add Health Users Conference a huge success! We had a great time seeing everyone in person and learning more about how Add Health data is used. The Plenary and Methodology presentations are now available for viewing. We hope to see you all again at the next users conference in 2024!

Presentations

Plenary Session: Add Health History, New Data, and Future Plans

• Brief Add Health History, Updates, and Exciting Plans for Wave VI presented by Dr. Robert A. Hummer
• New Findings from Wave V presented by Dr. Kathleen Mullan Harris
• Add Health Parent Study: Recent Findings & Updates presented by Dr. V. Joseph Hotz

Methodology Sessions

• Existing Resources and Future Opportunities and Longitudinal Considerations in Contextual Data Analysis presented by Dr. Lauren Gaydosh and Dr. Iliya Gutin
• Measures of Race/Ethnicity in Add Health presented by Dr. Taylor Hargrove
• Skin Tone and the Health Returns to Higher Status Among Black Americans presented by Reed DeAngelis
• Modeling Trajectories of Cognitive Function Across the Life Course: Integrative Data Analysis (IDA) Combining Add Health and Other Cohort Studies presented by Dr. Yang Claire Yang
• Contextual and Longitudinal Approaches for Understanding Risk Factors of AD/ADRD presented by Dr. Chantel Martin
• Polygenic Scores in Add Health presented by Dr. David Braudt
• The Genomics of Add Health presented by Dr. Brandt Levitt
• Add Health Wave V Biological Data and Vital Events presented by Dr. Eric Whitsel
• Best Practices in Finding and Using Add Health Data presented by Dr. Robert A. Hummer

The final agenda for the 2022 Add Health Users Conference is now available.

The conference program features over 40 presentations by investigators who are conducting research on the health and well-being of adolescents and adults using Add Health data. In addition, methodology sessions will be offered providing in-depth information on contextual data within Add Health, racial inequalities, cognitive function, genomics, biological data, and how best to use and analyze the Add Health data sets.

The principal goal of the conference is to give researchers who are working with data from Add Health an opportunity to share research goals, experiences, and results.  It will also provide an opportunity for those interested in working with the data to learn how they are currently being used by others. 

The conference is being co-sponsored by the National Institute of Aging, NIH; the Add Health Study at the Carolina Population Center, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For more information, visit the conference website.

“America’s kids are not all right — we need urgent action to save young lives,” the title of a recent op-ed in The Hill by Add Health Director, Dr. Hummer, says it all. As COVID-19 continues, concerns regarding the mental health of children and young adults have become a popular topic of conversation. But the truth is, kids were not all right before the pandemic. “Americans under age 25 face higher death rates and lower life expectancies than their peers in other affluent nations,” remarks Hummer in his recent piece. The infant mortality rate is three times higher in the U.S. than in other affluent countries, accounting for almost 21,000 deaths of the nearly 60,000 people under the age of 25 who died in America in 2019. Childhood poverty also plays a large role in the risk of dying early. Despite government benefits, such as food assistance and housing vouchers, one report showed that the U.S. child poverty rate is the second-highest out of 35 advanced economies. 

Dr. Hummer’s op-ed suggests that “many young lives could be saved through policies and interventions addressing social and economic inequities.” By reducing child poverty and providing access to childcare, preschool, housing, nutrition, and healthcare, many young lives could be saved. Another crucial avenue to lower death rates is to improve access to quality healthcare and reproductive health programs by addressing the racial and ethnic barriers. The risk of death before age 25 is 60% higher among Black children and adolescents than their white peers. Dr. Hummer states, “Policymakers and community leaders need to take a hard look at what can be done to implement reforms that will save young lives. In our incredibly wealthy country, we must assure that our children are not in poverty, have their health care needs met and are free from the dangers of firearm violence. We owe our children and adolescents at least this much.”

Visit The Hill to read the full article.

Add Health is hitting the road! We are excited to attend the PAA 2022 annual meeting from April 6, 2022, to April 9, 2022, our first in-person conference in over two years. Dr. Robert A. Hummer, Dr. Kathleen Mullan Harris, and other members of the Add Health team will present during the conference. Team members will also be at booth #22 and ready to answer your questions and provide more information on these rich data sets. Visit PAA for the full conference schedule. We can’t wait to see you there!

Add Health is pleased to announce the release and public download availability of Wave V Public-Use Biomarker Data. 

Wave V Demographics – Home Exam
This file contains various demographic variables in regards to the Wave V Home Exam, including the date of the home exam, number of days between the Wave V survey and the home exam, the home exam completion status, as well as the respondent’s age, biological sex, pregnancy status, medication use, and blood draw status. N=1,839

Wave V Anthropometrics
This file contains anthropometric variables constructed from the measurements taken at the Wave V Home Exam. The measurements include arm circumference, height, weight, and waist circumference. The file also contains BMI, as well as classification variables for BMI and waist circumference. N=1,839

Wave V Medications – Home Exam
This file provides the therapeutic classification codes, as well as numerous medication flag variables, to identify the types of medications taken by respondents for medications (both prescription and over-the-counter) reported at the Wave V Home Exam. N=3,883

Wave V Cardiovascular Measures
This file contains cardiovascular measures constructed from the three serial measurements of blood pressure and pulse rate collected at the Wave V Home Exam. The measures include systolic and diastolic blood pressure, pulse rate, pulse pressure, and mean arterial pressure. Other variables included in the file are two classifications of blood pressure, flags based on self-reported medical history, an antihypertensive medication flag, and a joint classification variable. N=1,839

Wave V Lipids
This file contains constructed measures designed to facilitate analysis and interpretation of lipids results based on venous blood collected via phlebotomy at the Wave V Home Exam. In addition to the lipid assay results, there are classifications according to both the NCEP/ATP III and AHA/ACC guidelines, a flag for antihyperlipidemic medication use, and two hyperlipidemia joint classification variables. N=1,839

Wave V Glucose Homeostasis
This file contains assay results of glucose and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) based on venous blood collected via phlebotomy at the Wave V Home Exam. There are classifications for fasting glucose and non-fasting glucose, as well as HbA1C classification. Other variables included are flags based on a self-reported diabetes medical history, anti-diabetic medication use, and a diabetes joint classification variable. N=1,839

Wave V 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 V Home Exam. In addition to the assay results for high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), there is an AHA/CDC classification, counts of subclinical symptoms and common infectious or inflammatory diseases, and various anti-inflammatory medication use flags. N=1,839

Wave V Renal Function
This file contains constructed measures designed to facilitate analysis and interpretation of renal function based on venous blood collected via phlebotomy at the Wave V Home Exam. Assay results for creatinine and cystatin-c are available, as well as three different estimations of the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) using either the creatine concentration, the cystatin C concentration, or both concentrations. Classifications according to both clinical and KDIGO guidelines are available as well. N=1,839

For more information regarding Wave V Public-Use Data or to download the data, please visit the CPC Data Portal. 

Add Health is pleased to announce the dates of the 2022 Add Health Users Conference. Join us Monday, July 11, and Tuesday, July 12, 2022, at the Rizzo Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Connect with other Add Health users and learn more about these rich data sets.

Registration is now open. The preliminary agenda will be available in late spring. For conference updates and additional details, including hotel accommodations, visit the conference website.

Add Health is currently accepting abstracts. Submissions are due by Monday, March 21, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Abstracts may be submitted through the abstract form located on the conference website. For more information and suggested topics, view the full Call for Papers.

Add Health is pleased to announce that the Wave V Public-Use data has been released is now available to download. 

Wave V Public-Use Data is a smaller sample of the Wave V Mixed-Mode Survey Data. This sample, like the other waves of public-use data, consists of one-half of the core sample and one-half of the oversample of African-American adolescents with a parent who has a college degree, chosen at random. N=4,196.

For more information regarding the Wave V Public-Use data or to download the data, please visit the CPC Data Portal. 

For more information on the CPC Data Portal, please visit the Frequently Asked Questions page. 

We are excited to announce that the Add Health Navigator is now live!

Add Health Navigator is Add Health’s Colectica portal that provides the ability to search codebooks, view wave to wave variable comparison and create custom codebooks for your research. 

To access the Add Health Navigator, please visit the Documentation page of the Add Health website.  

The following data are now available to Add Health contract researchers.

Polygenic Index Inventories

Polygenic scores computed by the SSGAC consortium for anthropometric traits, cognition/education, fertility/sexual development, health/health behaviors, and personality/well being. N=5,689

Current Add Health investigators can log in to the CPC Data Portal and use the “Request More Data” button to order this dataset.

For more information on the CPC Data Portal, please visit the Frequently Asked Questions page. 

The following data are now available to Add Health contract researchers. 

Wave I State Demographic Characteristics, Exclusionary Indices, and Inclusionary Indices

These data provide measures of punishment regime variation in state-based policies, practices, and programs, both in their punitive and non-punitive forms and some additional state demographic control variables. These data were gathered to use with Add Health for multilevel analyses. N=20,745.

Contextual Wave IV Database

The data provide an important update to the contextual variables already available in Wave IV by including information at the state- and county levels. Additionally, there are a few new variables in the present database that are absent from other waves. N=15,701.

Contextual Wave V Database

This contextual database further expands the extensive contextual data currently available to users of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) through the provision of numerous measures reported by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), rural-urban commuting area codes, U.S. Climate Atlas, and Uniform Crime Report. N=12,300.

Wave V County Health and Mobility Data Documentation

The Wave V County Health and Mobility database summarize the socioeconomic, health, and mobility characteristics of the environments in which Add Health participants were living at the time of their Wave V interview. County-level data describe (1) levels of and trends in chronic disease (hypertension, type-2 diabetes) and health risk behaviors (obesity, smoking, alcohol use); and (2) economic opportunity and inequality. N=12,300.

Wave V – ACA Medicaid Expansion Data

This data file provides the year in which states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. These dates are attached to the location in which Add Health participants were living at Wave V. N=2,300.

Waves I, IV, and V – The Opportunity Atlas: Mapping the Childhood Roots of Social Mobility Data

This file enhances the existing Add Health contextual database through the addition of measures essential to understanding the determinants and sequelae of socioeconomic mobility. Specifically, it aims to characterize the socioeconomic mobility of Add Health participants at Wave I, IV, and V. WI N=20,745, WIV N=15,701, WV N=12,300.

Wave IV City Crime Rate Data

This Crime Rate Data file facilitates research examining the impact of community violence on the health trajectories of Wave IV Add Health participants by providing police department crime data from 13 U.S. cities with high crime rates. N=15,701.

Wave V City Crime Rate Data

This Crime Rate Data file facilitates research examining the impact of community violence on the health trajectories of Wave V Add Health participants by providing police department crime data from 13 U.S. cities with high crime rates. N=12,300.

Current Add Health investigators can log in to the CPC Data Portal and use the “Request More Data” button to order this data set. 

For more information on the CPC Data Portal, please visit the Frequently Asked Questions page.