The National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health

Abstract

In this issue ofThe Journal, Resnick et al¹report the first research findings from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health—the Add Health study. This first release of Add Health data describes relationships between family, school, and individual factors and several preventable health outcomes of high public health significance, including emotional distress, suicide, violence, substance use, and sexual behaviors. The study design included a survey of a nationally representative sample of more than 90 000 US adolescents in schools and then an interview of 12118 of these 7th- through 12th-grade adolescents in their homes, using state-of-the-art measurements and methods. The adolescents in the in-home sample are followed longitudinally. Although this article is limited to phase 1 results, the findings provide solid evidence for ways that families and schools can be protective in the lives of teenagers. While many of the findings in this report are confirmatory, the longitudinal