NYTD is designed to follow the outcomes of youth exiting the foster care system as they become adults. The study recruits youths from across the United States of America in the foster system who turn 17 years old in the baseline year and surveys them three times: at age 17, at age 19, and finally, at age 21. The study begins with a new cohort every three years. As of 2024, NYTD has cohorts beginning in 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2020. Participants were from all fifty states, including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. Participants self-identified as various ethnicities, including American Indian, Asian, black or African American, white, Pacific Islander, and native Hawaiian. Participants of the four cohorts were born in 1994, 1997, 2000, and 2003.