Sponsored by the National Institute on Aging                                                                                                           May 9, 2008
Main page for MIDUS website
Information on MIDUS I
Information on MIDUS II
Products using the MIDUS Data
MIDUS Data
MIDUS Pilot Program
Findings From MIDUS Study
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History of MIDUS

The first national survey of Midlife Development in the U.S. (MIDUS) was conducted in 1994/95 by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development (see MIDMAC website). The study was conceived by a multidisciplinary team of scholars from fields of psychology, sociology, epidemiology, demography, anthropology, medicine, and health care policy. Their collective aim was to investigate the role of behavioral, psychological, and social factors in accounting for age-related variation in health and well-being in a nation sample of Americans. In addition to the national probability sample (N = 3,485), the study included over-samples in select metropolitan areas (N = 757), a sample of siblings (N = 951) of the main respondents, and a national sample of twins (N = 998 pairs).

The original MIDUS study was innovative on multiple levels. First, it provided a groundbreaking assessment of many psychological factors (e.g., personality traits, well-being, positive and negative affect, sense of control, goal commitments) in a national sample of Americans. MIDUS also afforded new directions for demography, epidemiology, and sociology by linking their key variables (e.g., marital status, family structure, socioeconomic standing, social participation, social support, employment status, health status, health care utilization) to the above psychological factors.

Second, the multidisciplinary team carried out painstaking pilot research to develop short-form assessments of many psychosocial constructs. Thus, another first of MIDUS was the creation of condensed assessment inventories that could be used with large samples.

Third, the full scientific scope of MIDUS I was expansive, covering the wide substantive territories brought to the study by the multidisciplinary investigative team. Once in the field, the study demonstrated that population-level inquiry could successfully encompass unprecedented scope, through a well-crafted phone interview, combined with a lengthy self-administered survey.

Fourth, MIDUS included creative use of satellite studies – investigations built onto the main sample to provide greater depth in key areas. For example, diary studies of daily stress were conducted on a subsample of 1,400 respondents (including twins), and an over-sample of respondents in the Boston area afforded the opportunity to investigate life management in greater depth. These satellites – effectively “studies within a study” -- provided a novel solution to disciplinary trade-offs between sampling scope and generalizability, on the one hand, and in-depth assessments of core constructs, on the other. The MIDUS design encompassed both.

A more detailed look at the scientific objectives of this initial study are described in the first chapter of an edited volume entitled “How Healthy Are We?: A National Study of Well-being at Midlife,” published in 2004. The content of survey is also summarized in that chapter. Other chapters in the volume summarize key findings, organized by topical areas. These chapters are also available by clicking on the book title below.

Click here to download chapters from "How Healthy Are We?"

Since the MIDUS I data became publicly available in 1998, researchers from many scientific fields have used the data to publish articles in leading journals, such as The American Journal of Public Health, Annuals of Internal Medicine, Family Relations, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of Gerontology, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Milbank Quarterly, Motivation and Emotion, Psychology of Aging, and Social Science and Medicine.

Based on the success of MIDUS I, the National Institute on Aging awarded a grant to the Institute on Aging of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002 to carry out a longitudinal follow-up of MIDUS respondents. The objectives of this research were to repeat the comprehensive assessments obtained in all of the original content areas, plus launch new areas of biological and neurological assessment. MIDUS II thus consists of 5 separate research projects, each of which is collecting different information from sample respondents. Details of these projects are available by clicking on MIDUS II.

Scope of MIDUS

Among the key content areas covered in the initial MIDUS survey were the following: demographic information, living arrangements, childhood experiences and family background, occupational history, financial situation, quality of spousal/partner relationship, information on parents, information on children and parenting experiences, psychological factors (personality, sense of control, goals, well-being, perceived discrimination), social networks and support, social participation, religion and spirituality, mental and emotional health, self-rated physical health, chronic conditions, health symptoms, disability and functional limitations, and health beliefs and practices.

Importantly, the above assessments were obtained on individuals of differing age, gender, socioeconomic background, marital status, and race/ethnicity. And, via MIDUS II, this information has now become longitudinal, such that we are tracking stability and change in these various assessments over an approximately 10-year period.

MIDUS II also encompasses additional breadth via its assessments of daily stress and reactions to them (Project 2), in-depth cognitive evaluations (Project 1 and Project 3), comprehensive biomarker assessments (Project 4), and neuroscience assessments (Project 5). Taken together, MIDUS II will collect arguably the most comprehensive data ever assembled in a national survey of Americans.