How was I selected?
The Monitoring the Future (MTF) project is an important study designed to look at changing behaviors, attitudes and preferences of American youth. We believe that studying the way young people are like today will tell us a lot about the way the whole nation will be tomorrow.
We started surveys in 12th grade back in 1975 and probably the most important feature of MTF is that we are nationally representative. This representativeness is due to our sampling procedures – we survey students in all regions of the contiguous 48 states. With such a great amount of statistical power, our data can represent how most students think and feel about the topics we cover.
For our follow-up surveys, from the senior classes we survey, we select 2,450 students who provided their contact information. These students are chosen to be representative of the nation as a whole and each student “represents” about 10,000 students like them. The follow-up participants are randomly selected but we stratify on region of the country and gender. Our study does not select participants because of their answers on the surveys, we are a study of the ‘generalized population’.
The participants selected are very important to us, and provide important information on many topics. People who pay close attention to the aggregate responses use it to make decisions about education and policies at the local and national level. As an example, our data on the extent to which young people are vaping has made national headlines, and has informed policy makers (the FDA) on the prevalence of vaping.
I want you to know that even if selected randomly, your participation is very important to us. Participating every other year can seem overwhelming, but you should know that your information is very important and we learn a lot about how people’s attitudes and behaviors change through the transition to adulthood.
How are my responses kept confidential?
On our survey introduction you would see the following information “Participating in this study is completely voluntary and all of your answers will continue to be kept confidential. A special grant of confidentiality from the US government (Department of Justice) guarantees our ability to keep all data completely confidential.” We keep contact information for you in order to send our mailings and survey invitation (including the thank you payment). All your name and address information is always kept separate from your survey answers; they are stored separately at all times. We also never give your name and address information to anyone. We store your data on secure servers here at the university.
Once a survey is completed, there is no way that your responses can be matched to your contact information, except by using a special computer file at the University of Michigan. That file contains two DIFFERENT numbers that are associated with your survey responses and your contact information. These numbers are used ONLY to match your responses over time. We have collected surveys from over one million students in the past 46 years and we have never had a breach of this confidentiality.
Again, we only use the contact information that you provided to send you the annual newsletter of results and to send the next survey. Participation in the study is completely voluntary, you can stop at any time, and your surveys will continue to be kept confidential.
Can I see my answers from years past?
Some have asked us for a summary of your individual answers from the years you have been a part of this survey. Because we promise confidentiality and will never connect names and responses outside of our research team, we are unable to accommodate (these) this request(s). We hope that the annual newsletter, which includes a summary of results from a variety of topics mailed to all respondents each winter, is informative and interesting.
What is the purpose of the study and what is the data collected used for?
Data from Monitoring the Future is used by policy makers and intervention professionals to understand how US adolescents and adults are using different substances, how much is being used, what the risks of use are, and how use and risks vary across different groups of individuals.
Additionally, the survey is used to track changes or patterns in a number of other non-substance use attitudes and behaviors over time. We report aggregate responses in annual publications and press releases, and use the aggregate data for scientific peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and other reports, including our annual newsletters to you. Our findings inform the National Institutes of Health and other government and policy-making agencies.
We want to make sure the findings are disseminated to inform the nation regarding trends in our population’s health and wellbeing and to advance science. For example, our data on the extent to which young people are vaping has made national headlines, and has informed policy makers (the FDA) on the prevalence of vaping. You can find links to the publications produced from our investigators at our website: monitoringthefuture.org