The purpose of this project is to add a short module (less than 5 minutes) to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to gain a better understanding of how Americans experience their time and how their activities relate to their health and subjective well-being. The ATUS collects time use data from approximately 13,000 Americans a year. The supplemental module will collect data on measures of affective experience during randomly selected episodes of the day. The affect measures will relate to the extent to which respondents felt tired, in pain, happy, stressed, sad and interested during the sampled episodes. Individuals will also be asked if they were interacting with someone during sampled episodes, and during sampled work episodes respondents will be asked whether they were mostly alone, with their boss, with coworkers, with clients/customers, or with others. (This type of information is available for most nonwork episodes.) Lastly, some information will also be collected on health status. Information from the ATUS can also be linked to the Current Population Survey, which is expected to include questions on disability status and functional limitations. The broad, long-term goal of this research is to meet the mission of the NIA by measuring the well-being of the U.S. population, including the aging. By marrying time-use data with reports on affective experience, researchers will be able to: (1) identify activities that are associated with similar emotional responses (e.g., pain);(2) track activities in a meaningful way over historical time, across groups (e.g., across age groups) and across countries;(3) better understand the experience of daily life;and (4) develop an index allowing comparison of well being across different population subgroups.
