Is the longitudinal panel data available for Monitoring the Future?

The information below comes directly from Monitoring the Future. Please refer to their Web site for more information.

1. A subset of high school seniors are selected each year for follow-up, which is conducted in an alternating biennial fashion, with the first half of the subset receiving their first follow-up questionnaire one year after high school, and the second half receiving their follow-up two years after high school. They receive a series of six questionnaires within this arrangement, so the second half of the subset is 12 years past high school when they receive their last young adult "FU-12" questionnaire. Then, the follow-up procedure changes to 5-year intervals to cover middle adulthood.
   
2. The questionnaires in the young adult follow-ups are directly comparable to the base year questionnaires, both in content and in numbers of questionnaire forms. The core drug use questions are included along with the same types of related attitude and behavioral items, many of which are unique to each form, so respondents receive the same questionnaire form throughout the base year and young adult follow-up series.
   
3. All data for a particular individual are linked (or, in the case of form-specific items, capable of being linked) in the panel dataset. The sheer amount of information greatly increases the risk of breaching confidentiality. Thus, based on policies approved by our funding source and IRB, the panel data set cannot be made available to the public in totality and without modification.
   
4. Special data requests can be made through the Web site email address. Once we get a request, information about policies and procedures is sent out. Requests are considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be fulfilled - at requestor's cost - typically by providing data analytic access.
   

Additional information about the design of the panel component of the design and procedures used in the study are included in our annual NIDA report, Volume II, and in more detail in the MTF "Occasional Papers." See, for example, "The Aims and Objectives of the Monitoring the Future Study and Progress Toward Fulfilling Them as of 2006" (pdf).

To make a request for this data and for further information, please contact MTF staff at: MTFinfo@isr.umich.edu