The Jackson Heart Study

Site: https://www.jacksonheartstudy.org

Updated 5/30/22

Country: United States

Study design: Observational cohort with repeated measurements over time

Participant age range:

  • Early adulthood or midlife
  • Aging adults

Number of participants at baseline: 5,306 African American adults aged 35-84

Year of initial enrollment: 2000

Number of data collection waves: 3 primary waves; data collection ongoing

Measures of well-being:

  • Optimism
  • Mastery
  • Social support / integration / cohesion
  • Prosocial behavior or attitudes (e.g., volunteering, helping others)

Quantity of well-being measures (e.g., number of constructs, number of times well-being was assessed): Moderate

Quality of well-being measures (e.g., were measures reliable and valid in the study population): High

Measures of physical health: 

  • Self-rated / questionnaire-based health
  • Self-report medical history or medication use
  • Measured anthropometrics, e.g., weight
  • Biomarkers
  • Genetics
  • Adjudicated health outcomes

Access Information:

This dataset is available to all researchers.

Researchers are required to apply to access this data.

No fees are required to access this dataset.

Notable citation:

Lee H, Kubzansky L, Okuzono S, Trudel-Fitzgerald C, James P, Koga H, Kim E, Glover L, Sims M & Grodstein F. (2022). Optimism and risk of mortality among African-Americans: The Jackson heart study. Preventive medicine, 154, 106899.