The Community Tracking Study (CTS) is a set of periodic surveys and site visits that allows researchers to analyze information about local markets and the nation as a whole. Because health care delivery is primarily local, both the surveys and site visits are centered around communities in the U.S. In addition, because the focus of the CTS is on change as well as communities, the study is longitudinal. The survey samples are concentrated in 60 communities that were randomly selected to provide a representative profile of change across the U.S. Among these communities, 48 are "large" metropolitan areas (with populations greater than 200,000), from which 12 communities were randomly selected to be studied in depth. Those 12 communities have larger survey samples and also comprise the communities used for the site visits.
The MHAS is a prospective panel study of Mexicans born prior to 1951. The 2001 baseline is nationally representative of some 13 million Mexicans and similar in design and content to the Health and Retirement Study. Self or proxy interviews were obtained with 9,719 sampled persons and 6,112 spouse partners (n=15,186), for an overall response rate of 90.1%. MHAS includes measures of health (including childhood circumstances and cognition), family structure and transfers, migration history of respondents and kin, sources of income and wealth, and work history. In addition, MHAS includes a performance reading test of medication directions for respondents with low levels of formal education and, for a random subsample of 2138, anthropometric measurements were obtained. A 2003 follow up survey was also conducted.
