ANN ARBOR—University of Michigan researchers will send teams of interviewers into Chicago neighborhoods starting
“The Chicago Community Adult Health Study, which aims to complete approximately 3,700 face-to-face interviews by Thanksgiving, will be unique in its analysis of how environmental, social, psychological, and biological factors combine to affect health,” says James S. House, a sociologist with the U-M Institute for Social Research, the world’s largest academic survey and research organization.

“For example, we know there are racial/ethnic differences in blood pressure,” says House, who is the leader of the Chicago project. “This study will help us to understand how blood pressure varies not only as a function of the health care and personal characteristics of individuals, but also as a function of their psychological characteristics and the social environments in which they live and work.”

For the study, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health, interviewers will collect data about adults’ health, the quality of their lives, their beliefs and attitudes, and the social and physical characteristics of their neighborhoods.

Participants, who will receive a modest monetary gift for their cooperation, will be selected at random. Their identities will be protected and all information will be treated as strictly confidential.

“We expect that this study will give researchers and government policy makers the information they need to better understand and ultimately reduce social, economic, and racial and ethnic inequalities in health,” says House.

Established in 1948, the Institute for Social Research (ISR) is among the world’s oldest survey research organizations, and a world leader in the development and application of social science methodology. ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Survey of Consumer Attitudes, the National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the Institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China, and South Africa. Visit the ISR Web site at www.isr.umich.edu for more information

James S. HouseNational Institutes of HealthNational Election Studies