Sample

Data were collected from adults recruited into the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, a national longitudinal study of health and well-being (http://midus.wisc.edu). MIDUS began in 1995 with the purpose of understanding the bio–psycho–social processes of aging and is a major forum for investigating health of US adults. In 2012, adults were recruited to “refresh” (augment) the MIDUS study, with a core purpose of investigating the health impacts, broadly defined, of the ongoing economic recession on the lives of US adults. Consistent with the original 1995 MIDUS study (M1), the data collection process for this “refresher” study includes a number of different protocols including the main survey project, cognitive assessments, daily stress diaries, and biomarker and neuroscience data. Data from the main survey project were currently available for reporting for this study, as sampling and data collection for the other protocols are still ongoing.

Respondents were selected from the 48 contiguous states using random digit dialing (RDD) of numbers with age and sex information about household composition. This “refresher” sample (N = 2152) included respondents aged 25–54 years¹ who first completed a 45-minute phone interview focusing on sociodemographic and psychosocial assessments. Respondents received a US$25 post-incentive for completing the phone interview. All sampling and methods procedures were approved by the University of Wisconsin, Madison Institutional Review Board. The response rate for the phone interview was 55 percent, and respondents were comparable to the US population in terms of sex, age, race, and marital status. However, the sample was more highly educated relative to the national population. A subset of these respondents (N = 1414) completed a set of self-administered questionnaires (SAQs) that included assessments of health, employment, income, and psychosocial measures. Respondents received US$10 with the survey and an additional US$25 post-incentive. The response rate for the SAQ was 67 percent. For this study, data are reported for a sample of 1275 respondents that completed both the phone interview and the SAQ portions and had complete data for all dependent variables tested in the analyses. This subset of respondents was comparable to the larger refresher sample on sociodemographic factors (age, gender, marital status, and education).