Preventing Depression in Couples Facing Job Loss, 1996-1998: [Baltimore, Maryland, and Det

The Couples Employment Project (CEP) is a randomized field study of 1,487 participants designed to test an eight-workshop intervention for couples experiencing job loss. Conducted by the Institute for Social Research in Baltimore and Detroit between 1996 and 1998, the data includes screening scores, questionnaire measures, and direct behavioral observations collected across multiple time points.

Use Cases

• Evaluating the effectiveness of a workshop-based intervention on depression scores based on Kessler screening measures.
• Analyzing the impact of a recruitment videotape on workshop participation rates based on the described experimental subgroup design.
• Studying longitudinal changes in family life quality and behavior based on questionnaire and observation data collected at T1-T4 and T2.5.
• Modeling factors associated with depression in unemployed individuals based on variables like weeks unemployed, marital history, and number of children.

Strengths

• Data from a large-scale randomized controlled trial involving 6,534 screened couples and 1,487 baseline participants.
• Longitudinal design with follow-up data collected at post-test, six months, and one year.
• Includes multiple data types such as questionnaire scales and direct behavioral observations from a sub-sample.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the final analytical dataset is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to the two U.S. metropolitan areas studied in the late 1990s.

Provenance

Source

Institute for Social Research

Collection Method

Randomized field study with screening, baseline assessment, and multiple follow-up waves including questionnaires and direct observation.

Time Range

1996-1998

Geography

Baltimore, Maryland and Detroit, Michigan metropolitan areas, United States