Research Opportunities

The University of Michigan has in recent years had the distinction of securing the largest amount of federal research funding of any university in the country. It is an important, but not a singular, measure of the university's overall strength and commitment to research.

For students interested in studying survey methodology, it is even more important that the University of Michigan, with the Institute for Social Research as a premier academic unit in social science research, leads the country in research dollars supporting social science research. This research strength in social science provides survey methodology students with unparalleled opportunities to pursue research interests while at Michigan.

The University of Michigan and the Institute for Social Research are home to a number of major national social science studies spanning the social sciences from economics to political science to psychology and psychiatry and public health. Some of these landmark studies include:

• The Americans' Changing Lives survey, a longitudinal study of the relationships between aging, health, and social conditions. Started in 1987 and completing a fourth wave of data collection for a nationally representative sample of adults in 2002, the Americans' Changing Lives provides data that have been used to examine how social status effects health, regardless of health behavior.
• The Health and Retirement Survey, and its companion survey, the Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old, is the nation's leading study of how economic decisions are made through the retirement years, and how health effects the economic well being of retired individuals. These surveys employ biennial survey interviews of a national probability sample of a cohort of adults who move from employment and to retirement.
• The How Americans Responded survey was launched immediately after the attacks of September 11, 2001, to monitor the social, psychological, and attitudinal effects of the attacks on the American people. A rapid response telephone survey of adults in the US, the survey is being continued through grant funding from several sources.
• The Monitoring the Future surveys study the teenage smoking, alcohol consumption, and drug usage in annual surveys of 8^th, 10^th, and 12^th grade students. The surveys have since the mid-1970's interviewed thousands of middle and high school students each year, and today the data are closely monitored to study trends in teenage drug and alcohol consumption.
• The National Election Studies has since 1948 collected data on political opinions and voting behaviors from nationally representative samples of voting age adults every two years around Congressional elections. Unlike political polls designed to predict the outcome of an election, these election studies are used nationally and internationally to develop a more complete understanding of how and why people vote, and vote for particular candidates.
• The National Co-Morbidity Survey collects data on psychiatric conditions from nationally representative samples of adults through extensive survey interviews in their homes. These surveys are being used to assess the true prevalence of many psychiatric disorders in the US, and are providing invaluable data for developing national policy to diagnose and treat mental disorders.
• The Panel Study of Income Dynamics is among the most famous of the surveys conducted at the Institute for Social research. Since 1968, researchers at the Institute have been following a sample of families, including their offspring, to study longitudinally how their jobs and employment change over time, and how those jobs are related to income, wealth accumulation, social condition, and family composition.
• The National Survey of American Life is a new data collection designed to study how African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups live and work together in the same neighborhoods. Important new data are being collecting on a national sample of African Americans and those of other races who live in the same neighborhoods about psychological, social, economic, health, and psychiatric status. This survey is a follow up to the landmark National Survey of Black Americans, also conducted by the Institute in the late 1970's.
• The Survey of Consumers collects monthly by telephone survey data on the consumer attitudes about economic matters, and is perhaps the most widely known Institute data collection. It generates a value of the consumer attitude index, a key component of the US leading economic indicators, a closely watched measure of the health of the US economy.

This list does not include a number of other important social science surveys and survey activities being conducted at ISR on a continuing basis. The Institute for Social Research (ISR) web site contains a complete list of these surveys.