Because the names and personally identifiable information of the participants were never included in the questionnaires, the records are open without restrictions.
Boxes 1-33 are stored off-site and will take 1-2 days to retrieve. Researchers must call in advance to use the collection.
By terms of the deed of gift, Archives and Special Collections is required to notify the donor of the names and affiliations of researchers who use the records. In addition, all researchers who use the records must deposit a copy of their published research (in any medium) with the Health Sciences Library.
Records of the Longitudinal Harlem Adolescent Health Study (LHAHS), a survey of the health needs and problems of African-American adolescents who intially lived in the Central Harlem Health District of New York City. The survey was conducted periodically from 1968 to 1993. Included is an almost complete set of the interview questionnaires completed by the interviewers in face-to-face sessions with the participants. Additional records include background articles, brochures, interviewers' manuals for waves 1-4, codebooks for all five waves, and a surveyor's kit from 1989.
History and Biography
The Longitudinal Harlem Adolescent Health Study (LHAHS) studied for over 25 years the health needs and problems of 668 African-American adolescents who were 12 to 17 years old initially and lived in the Central Harlem Health District of New York City. The LHAHS was the nation's first community-based sociomedical survey of the health problems of teenagers and was one of the most significant such surveys in the U.S. in the 20th century.
The first survey was conducted in 1968-69 with funding from the U.S. Department of Maternal and Child Services. It aimed to provide a comprehensive description of the health and the health care needs of minority adolescents with the goal of establishing an adolescent health service at Harlem Hospital. There were four subsequent surveys of as many of the original participants as could be located. These "waves," as they were called, were conducted in 1975/76, 1983, 1989/90 and 1993 and were funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Waves 2-5 included questions on the health consequences of licit and illicit substance use. The 1989/90 and 1993 waves added questions designed to trace of the history of HIV/AIDS in the cohort. The discovery by the 1993 survey that over 8% of the participants were HIV positive - and that most weren't aware of it - was the first significant documentation of infection rates in a minority neighborhood.
The 1968-69 survey was created by Eric Josephson of what is now the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. Ann F. Brunswick, also of the Mailman School, collaborated on the first wave and then conducted all the subsequent waves herself. Between 1969 and 1999 Brunswick wrote over 50 articles based on the findings of the study and in 1972 she co-authored with Josephson Adolescent Health in Harlem, a two volume work based on the 1968-69 survey (available in the circulating collection of the Health Sciences Library at RA564.5 .B78 1972 Q).
More information on the LHAHS can be found in the background materials included in the records (Box 1:1 and Box 34) and in Looking at Lives: American Longitudinal Studies of the Twentieth Century, Erin Phelps, et. al., eds. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002).
Organization
Organized in eight series:
I. Background and Supporting Material
II. Questionnaires, Wave 1, Year 1 (1968)
III. Questionnaires, Wave 1, Year 2 (1969)
IV. Questionnaires, Wave 2 (1975/76)
V. Questionnaires, Wave 3 (1983)
VI. Questionnaires, Wave 4 (1989/90)
VII. Questionnaires, Wave 5 (1993).
VIII. Additional material (2014)
The records primarily consist of an almost complete set of the interview questionnaires completed by the interviewer in a face-to-face session with the participant. Subjects covered included utilization of medical and dental care; personal health practices; and self-perceptions, among many others. Questions on substance use (alcohol, tobacco, and drugs) were introduced in wave 2 (1974/75) while the wave 4 and 5 questionnaires elicited information relating to HIV/AIDS. The interviewer was also urged to note in the questionnaire booklet other aspects of the participant's answers or behavior that could not be captured by the questions alone.
The LHAHS was unusually successful in retaining its participants over a quarter century: the fifth wave (1993) was able to locate 74% of the initial 1968/69 participants, exclusive of those who had died or had relocated beyond a 60 mile radius of New York City. Although none of the participants are identified by name in any of the survey's record, "link lists" (Box 1:13-16) allow the researcher to follow an individual over time.
Besides the questionnaires, the records include background articles and reports, brochures, interviewer's manuals for waves 1-4, codebooks for all five waves, and a surveyor's kit from 1989. Questionnaires for several one-time surveys subsidiary to the main survey are also included in these records. These surveys include those for women who had early births; for the parents of the participants; and for Hispanic women.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Gift of Dr. Ann F. Brunswick, 2002 (acc. #2002.05.30); additional material of unknown provenance was added in 2014 (Box 34) (acc.#2014.008)