Data Archiving A Longitudinal Cohort: Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study

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ABSTRACT The continual uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the reality that there is no end in sight, has disrupted the lives of adults and children. Conducting rigorous causal analyses of health and well-being trajectories is hampered by social scientists’ lack of access to population-based longitudinal data collected prior to and during the pandemic. Although there have been many new cross-sectional data collections initiated during the pandemic, there are only a few cohort population-based collections that both situate individuals within their social networks throughout the life course and include measures specifically linked to the pandemic and social ties. The Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) interviewed adolescents (mean age 15) and a parent/caregiver in 2000 and conducted six subsequent interviews reaching into middle adulthood during the pandemic (mean age 34 in June-November 2020). The initial sample of 1,316 respondents was drawn from school rosters in Lucas County, Ohio (8 school districts). The comparative advantage of the TARS is the unique and continual focus on social relationships (parents, partners, peers, other family, children) as well as inclusion of indicators of key life course transitions (education, employment, family formation), contextual or geospatial data, mental and physical health indicators, behavioral outcomes (e.g., substance use, criminal justice exposure). Most domains include subjective as well as objective measures (e.g., perceptions of future employment prospects and current employment status). The combination of rich data that predates the pandemic and the most recent interview wave focusing on social distancing, pandemic stresses, coping, and subjective well-being provides opportunities for research on variation in responses and adaptations to the pandemic. Partnering with the international leaders in data stewardship, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), will make possible a state of the art secure and virtual data enclave. Making these data available at no charge through the ICPSR Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR) will provide new opportunities for researchers to answer critical questions about life course determinants of health and well-being trajectories of men and women from adolescence into midlife. The three specific aims are to 1) Generate user- friendly longitudinal, parent and geospatial TARS data file documentation; 2) Deposit longitudinal, parent, and geospatial data and documentation files to DSDR for curation and availability through the ICPSR Virtual Data Enclave; 3) Disseminate information about the availability of the TARS data through the secure ICPSR Virtual Data Enclave. Our documentation, archiving and dissemination plans will ensure wide access to the data that is cost-effective via a virtual portal to a broad range of social science scientists including researchers in criminology, demography, economics, family studies, human development, public health, psychology, and sociology.