Intro and Overview

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (known as Add Health) is the largest and most comprehensive longitudinal survey of adolescents. The study began in 1994 with a nationally representative sample of students in 7th to 12th grades at 80 high schools and 52 middle schools throughout the US. It includes follow up interviews through 2018. Although the public use files do not identify state of residence or any more specific geography, the data do include more than 2,500 attributes of community and neighborhood in which each respondent lives.

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Tips for Getting Started

There are several helpful methods reports and slide decks for new researchers:

Key Advantages

Longitudinal
Includes siblings to facilitate study of people raised in the same household and with shared genetics, but identifying siblings requires restricted-use data.
Goal is to continue forward with the cohort as they age.
Includes a disabled sample and over samples of racial and ethnic minority groups to facilitate small population studies.

Key Disadvantages

Long intervals between waves (e.g. 6-7 years between Wave IV and Wave III)
Small sample size precludes release of geographical identifiers (even state of residence) and geocodes are not available with the restricted-use data either though there is a process to allow investigators to merge their own data in a restricted-use data project.
Last wave includes adults aged 24-32
Public use data are smaller samples and do not allow linkages to friends, siblings or romantic partners, and does not include obesity information, neighborhood characteristics, genetics, political context or alcohol density.
Complex sampling design requires careful preparation to produce nationally representative estimates.

Papers Using these Data

A full bibliography is available here.

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