Country: United States 

Study Design: Clinical trial and observational cohort with repeated measurements over time

Participant age range: Women aged 50-79 years at recruitment

Number of participants at baseline: 161,808

Year of initial enrollment: 1993-1998

Number of data collection waves: ~11 among various sub-cohorts

Measures of well-being:

• Positive psychological well-being (overall /multidimensional)

• Optimism

• Social support / integration / cohesion

Quantity of well-being measures (e.g., number of constructs, number of times of well-being was assessed:  Moderate

Quality of well-being measures (e.g., were measures reliable and valid in the study population): Moderate

Measures of physical health: 

• Self-rated / questionnaire-based health

• Measured anthropometrics, e.g., weight

• Adjudicated health outcomes

Access information: This dataset is available to all researchers. Researchers must submit an application to access this data. There are no fees required to access this dataset.

Notable Citation: Tindle H, Chang Y, Kuller L, Manson J, Robinson J, Rosal M, Siegle G & Matthews K. (2009). Optimism, cynical hostility, and incident coronary heart disease and mortality in the Women’s Health Initiative. Circulation, 2009(120), 656-662.