Add Health as a Resource for the Science of the Exposome: Health Context Measures

The health context dataset described in this user guide includes measures capturing the degree to which environments support the health and wellbeing of residents—a result of social and structural inequality. Subjects covered include birth outcomes, health status, mortality, health insurance coverage and health expenditures, access to care, health behaviors, health disparities, state safety net generosity, and environmental factors. This health context dataset is part of a larger data collection effort that was designed to help scientists more effectively operationalize and study the exposome – the constellation of social, economic, psychological, behavioral, environmental, and biological factors that combine to shape the onset and progression of chronic disease, morbidity, and mortality. The measures described in this guide were assembled, cleaned, and merged to Add Health’s core and biological data by Taylor Hargrove, Brian Frizzelle, and Sarah Petry, under the direction of Robert A. Hummer, at the Carolina Population Center (CPC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.