Ongoing UW-Madison Research Projects and Related Activities

There are numerous major ongoing research projects available for Scholar participation and collaboration. Examples include:

• The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (Hauser): the most complete follow-up study of a cohort ever attempted in the US, focusing in its follow-up phase on not only education and social mobility but also measures of physical and mental health
• The Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Survey (Ryff) surveyed a nationally representative sample of over 7,000 adults, focusing on a number of topics such as depression and well-being, social responsibility, work, family, and health, and life management processes. A second wave of data collection is currently underway.
• The Health and Migration Survey (Palloni) is a bi-national longitudinal survey on the social mechanisms that that produce ethnic and racial disparities
• The National Survey of Families and Households (Bumpass) tracks family members in different generations and identifies links to selected health conditions with three waves of data.
• The NIH Center for Mind-Body Interaction (Davidson, Ryff) is one of five $11 Million Centers focusing on how emotions are encoded in the brain and then influence other body systems that affect health.
• The Newborn Lung Project (Palta) follows about 600 very low birth weight children who are being studied longitudinally to determine physical health, social development and school performance.
• The Effectiveness of Childhood Lead Abatement Programs (Kanarek) has followed a cohort of Milwaukee children shown to have high blood lead levels to determine the efficacy and cost effectiveness of various public health intervention strategies.
• The Women's Health Initiative (Carnes) is one of 40 national sites for this 11-year study of major questions in women's health. This, combined with the National Center of Excellence in Women's Health provides a rich source of opportunities in this important area of population health.
• The Epidemiology of Age-Related Hearing Loss Study (Cruickshanks) is in its ninth year and is an ancillary study to the Beaver Dam Study now in its fourteenth year; this study began with a representative sample of Beaver Dam residents over 40 years of age to determine the prevalence and natural history of vision loss.
• The Regional Variation in Breast Cancer Incidence in Wisconsin Study (Remington, Kanarek and Trentham-Dietz). This is a population-based case-control study of subjects with breast cancer from the Wisconsin Cancer Registry to examine environmental and socioeconomic factors that might explain the regional differences in incidence.
• The Wisconsin Population Health Cohort Study. This is a broad longitudinal population health tracking study proposed by the Medical School as a major activity for the new Blue Cross/Blue Shield conversion funding.