Understanding America Study (UAS)
The UAS is a social and health sciences infrastructure for collecting data on the daily lives of families and individuals. Participants are over 20,000 adult residents of the United States of America. Baseline data collection began in 2014, and recruitment is ongoing as of 2025. Participants complete core information surveys every two years and at various other time points for other forms of data collection, including wearables, Ecological Momentary Assessments, biological samples, additional online surveys and linked administrative data.
Study design
Cohort, Cohort - open, Household panel
Number of participants at first data collection
21,129 (participants as of 2024)
Recruitment is ongoing
Age at first data collection
≥ 18 years (participants)
Participant year of birth
Varied (participants)
Participant sex
All
Representative sample at baseline?
Households in the United States of America.
Sample features
Country
Year of first data collection
2014
Primary Institutions
University of Southern California (USC)
Profile paper DOI
Funders
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Ongoing?
Yes
Data types collected
- Activity log (e.g. food, sleep, exercise)
- Computer, paper or task testing (e.g. cognitive testing, theory of mind doll task, attention computer tasks)
- Physical environment assessment (e.g. pollution, mould)
- Physical or biological assessment (e.g. blood, saliva, gait, grip strength, anthropometry)
- Secondary data
- Self-report questionnaire – online
- Wearable devices
- None
- None
- Census data
- Geographic, spatial & environmental data
- Healthcare data
- Mortality data
- Police & judicial system data
- Social care data
- Tax, income & benefit data
Engagement
Keywords
