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| Monitoring the Future | |
|---|---|
| Name | Monitoring the Future |
| Acronym | MTF |
| Established | 1975 |
| Sponsor | National Institute on Drug Abuse |
| Country | United States |
| Frequency | Annual survey |
Monitoring the Future is a long-running, annual national survey of substance use and related attitudes among American adolescents, college students, and young adults. Conducted by a consortium of research institutions, it tracks trends in tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, prescription drugs, and behavioral indicators across cohorts and time periods. The project informs policy debates, public health responses, and scholarly research by providing longitudinal and cross-sectional data on youth behavior in the United States.
Monitoring the Future surveys samples of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders along with selected cohorts of college students and adults, producing nationally representative estimates used by agencies such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and Office of National Drug Control Policy. Academic partners have included University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, Yale University, and University of California, Los Angeles. The survey instruments have been cited in studies published in journals like The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The Lancet, and American Journal of Public Health and inform reports by organizations such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Research Center.
MTF began in 1975 under the leadership of researchers at the University of Michigan and funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Early methodological influence came from projects at Harvard University, Brookings Institution, and the RAND Corporation. The survey evolved alongside national responses to drug issues seen in legislation such as the Controlled Substances Act and initiatives like the War on Drugs era policies. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, collaborations with investigators from Columbia University, Duke University, University of California, San Diego, and University of Pennsylvania expanded analytic capacity. In the 2000s and 2010s, MTF incorporated topics related to new pharmaceuticals linked to studies from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, surveillance methods refined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and technological changes parallel to research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University.
MTF employs stratified, multistage probability sampling of schools and students, building on survey design principles used in studies from National Center for Health Statistics and techniques developed at University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. Questionnaires are administered in classrooms and via follow-up mail and web surveys for young adult cohorts, using measures comparable to those in the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System and instruments referenced by World Health Organization guidelines. Analytic methods incorporate weighting, imputation, and trend analysis approaches employed in work by scholars at Princeton University, University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, and Northwestern University. Substantive modules cover substances, attitudes, perceived risk, and availability, aligning with constructs used in research by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine.
MTF findings have documented shifts in adolescent behavior reported in national conversations involving entities such as the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and Surgeon General of the United States. Reports have chronicled declines in adolescent cigarette smoking noted alongside case studies from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campaigns, surges in e-cigarette use linked to market entries by companies comparable in impact to industrial entrants examined in Federal Trade Commission analyses, and patterns of opioid misuse paralleling trends highlighted by Food and Drug Administration advisories. The survey captured increases and decreases in marijuana use during policy changes referenced alongside debates in Supreme Court of the United States cases and state-level legislation in California, Colorado, and Washington (state). Data have also informed scholarship on mental health correlates discussed in reports from American Psychological Association and studies published by teams at Harvard Medical School.
Policymakers, educators, and public health officials from institutions like U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, state health departments in New York (state), Texas, and Florida, and advocacy groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving rely on MTF data to craft interventions. Academic researchers at University of Michigan School of Public Health, Brown University, Rutgers University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Emory University use the dataset for studies on trajectories of use, prevention program evaluation, and social determinants of substance use. International comparisons appear in literature alongside surveys like the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs and have been cited by agencies such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Critiques from scholars at University of California, Los Angeles, University of Minnesota, University of Texas at Austin, and Boston University concern declining response rates akin to issues documented by the Pew Research Center, potential underreporting studied in literature from RAND Corporation, and limitations in capturing marginalized populations similar to concerns raised about the National Health Interview Survey. Others note that rapid changes in substance markets identified by analysts at Brookings Institution and Aspen Institute may outpace annual data cycles, and that school-based sampling misses youth outside formal schooling monitored in reports by Urban Institute and Annie E. Casey Foundation.
MTF is often compared to longitudinal and cross-sectional studies such as the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, the Add Health study, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and international efforts like the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs. Methodological comparisons reference work from National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, Child Trends, and analytic frameworks used by research teams at Columbia University and Harvard School of Public Health.
Category:Surveys in the United States