Midlife in the United States (MIDUS 3): Daily Diary Project, 2017-2019

The National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE) is one of the in-depth studies that are part of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) longitudinal study of health and well-being. Known within the MIDUS study as the Daily Diary Project (2), the purpose of the NSDE is to examine the day-to-day lives, particularly the daily stressful experiences, of a subsample of MIDUS respondents. The primary aims of the MIDUS 3 Daily Diary project were to: (1) describe how the links between multiple aspects of daily stressors (e.g., frequency, content, severity) and daily physical and emotional well-being change over ten years during adulthood; (2) examine how sociodemographic factors and personality characteristics influence change in both exposure to as well as changes in physical and emotional reactivity to daily stressors; (3) investigate how exposure and reactivity to daily stressors correlate with physiological indicators of physical health and predict changes in global health reports; and (4) explore the relative genetic and environmental influences mediating change in exposure and physical and emotional reactivity to daily stressors throughout adulthood. During 2017-2019, the Daily Diary project collected data on a subsample of the MIDUS 3 survey sample, including cases from the MIDUS Milwaukee sample. A total of 1,236 respondents completed Daily Diary interviews. A subset of these respondents provided 4-days worth of saliva samples that provided data on cortisol and alpha amylase.