Monitoring The Future (MTF)
Written by: SAVANNAH BLAKE
Last week The New York Times made a post about a new study that found almost 30% of adults aged 35 to 50 reported binge drinking in 2022. This has continued an upward trend from last year, which was reported at 23%. But the study where this information can be found isn’t new at all. It comes out every fall and it is called Monitoring The Future (MTF). It is a long-term epidemiological study conducted by researchers at The University of Michigan and is funded by research grants from The National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Monitoring the Future is an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of Americans from adolescence through adulthood. The questionnaires are sent out yearly by mail and survey trends in legal and illicit drug use among American adolescents and adults as well as personal levels of perceived risk and disapproval for each drug.
The MTF began in 1975 and focused only on that years’ senior class. In 1991, the survey was expanded to include 8th and 10th grade students. For the younger grades each survey is anonymous, while the questionnaire for 12th-grade students is confidential—name and address information is collected for follow-up surveys. Nationally, representative samples of students receive a questionnaire inquiring about substance use patterns, attitudes and beliefs about drugs, perceived availability of drugs, and norms among peer and role model groups. Currently, upwards of 50,000 8th, 10th and 12th-grade students fill out this survey yearly.
Monitoring The Future isn’t just interested in drug habits and opinions. The questionnaires include questions on a variety of subjects, including attitudes toward religion, parental influences, changing roles of women, educational aspirations, self-esteem, exposure to sex education, concerns about media consumption and violence and crime - both in and out of school.
When the follow-up respondents reach age 35, they are surveyed every five years at ages 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, and 60. The follow-up studies conducted into adulthood cover life events, drug use, health, marriage and family formation, college attendance, military service, civilian employment, unemployment, and other topics.
Monitoring the Future is committed to making their data publicly available, while also protecting and preserving the confidentiality of study respondents. MTF data is hosted at National Addiction and HIV Data Archive Program (NAHDAP), whose mission is to facilitate research on drug addiction and HIV infection by acquiring, enhancing, preserving, and sharing data produced by research grants, particularly those funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/monitoring-future
