DOI: 10.3886/icpsr35197.v13
title: Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS)
title: Version 13

description: *****************************************************************************************
April 29, 2025: STARRS - Longitudinal Study Wave 4 (LSW4) data released
*****************************************************************************************
The Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS) is an extensive study of mental health risk and resilience among military personnel. Army STARRS consists of eight separate but integrated epidemiologic and neurobiologic studies. Survey data for three of the Army STARRS study components are available via Secure Dissemination or via the ICPSR Virtual Data Enclave: New Soldier Study (NSS); All Army Study (AAS) and Pre-Post Deployment Study (PPDS). Also available are data for the STARRS-Longitudinal Study (STARRS-LS), which are follow-up surveys conducted with Army STARRS participants from AAS, NSS and PPDS studies. Lastly, baseline administrative data from the Army/Department of Defense (DoD) and blood sample flags for Soldiers who had blood drawn as a part of their participation in NSS or PPDS are available.
The AAS component of Army STARRS assesses soldiers' psychological and physical health, events encountered during training, combat, and non-combat operations, and life and work experiences across all phases of Army service. The AAS data includes data on soldiers' psychological resilience, mental health, and risk for self-harm.
The NSS data are drawn from new soldiers who have just entered the Army. The data contain information on soldier health, personal characteristics, and prior experiences. Results from a series of neurocognitive tests are also included in the NSS data.
The PPDS data are drawn from active duty soldiers who were interviewed at four points in time: 3-4 months prior to deployment to Afghanistan; within 1-2 weeks after return from deployment; 1-3 months after return from deployment; and 9-12 months after return from deployment. The PPDS data contain information on soldiers' psychological resilience, mental health, deployment experiences, and risk for self-harm.
The STARRS-LS data are from multiple follow-up interviews with individuals who previously participated in the AAS, NSS and PPDS study components of Army STARRS. STARRS-LS data contain follow-up information on soldiers' and veterans' physical and mental health, resilience and risk for self-harm, military and employment status, deployment experience, and personal characteristics as they move through their Army careers and after they leave the Army.
description: The Army STARRS project was conducted to identify factors that help protect a soldier's mental health and factors that put a soldier's mental health at risk.
description: Analysis of Army STARRS/STARRS-LS study data requires the use of weights to correct for differential probabilities of selection as well as nonresponse. To conduct weighted analyses, AAS (Dataset 1) contains weight variable, WGT_AAS, and NSS (Dataset 2) contains weight variable, WGT_NSS. For the PPDS studies (Datasets 5, 6, 7, and 8), a table called PPDS_WEIGHTS (Dataset 4) contains weights for various combinations of participation in each wave of PPDS data collection. Finally, STARRS-LS Wave 1 (Dataset 9) contains weight variable WEIGHT_LSW1_NORM, STARRS-LS Wave 2 (Dataset 10) contains weight variable WEIGHT_LSW2_NORM, STARRS-LS Wave 3 (Dataset 11) contains weight variables WEIGHT_LSW3_NORM and WEIGHT_LSW3_WITH_LSW2_NORM (for respondents who completed both LSW2 and LSW3 surveys), STARRS-LS Wave 4 (Dataset 13) contains weight variables WEIGHT_LSW4_NORM and WEIGHT_LSW4_WITH_LS2LS3_NORM (for respondents who completed LSW2, LSW3, and LSW4 surveys). Weights provided for each study can be applied in analysis of the AAS, NSS, PPDS, STARRS-LS Wave 1, STARRS-LS Wave 2, STARRS-LS Wave 3, and STARRS-LS Wave 4 survey data. For information on survey weights, please see the Analysts' Guide for Weighted Estimation and Design-based Inference section of the ICPSR User Guide.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: All Army Study
DS2: New Soldier Study
DS3: Master Respondent ID Linkage Table
DS4: Pre/Post Deployment Study - Weights
DS5: Pre/Post Deployment Study - Time 0
DS6: Pre/Post Deployment Study - Time 1
DS7: Pre/Post Deployment Study - Time 2
DS8: Pre/Post Deployment Study - Time 3
DS9: Longitudinal Study Wave 1
DS10: Longitudinal Study Wave 2
DS11: Longitudinal Study Wave 3
DS12: Administrative Data File
DS13: Longitudinal Study Wave 4
description: Active duty regular Army, activated or deactivated Guard and Reserve, separated or retired regular Army, Guard, and Reserve servicemembers who have previously participated in an Army STARRS study.
description: computer-assisted self interview (CASI); computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI); paper and pencil interview (PAPI); on-site questionnaire; web-based surveyNote to authors who publish analyses of STARRS data:
<strong>When you publish secondary analyses of these data, you must formally cite the data in your publication's References section using the full citation available from the STARRS study page (https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35197) on the ICPSR website.</strong>
This citation is dynamically generated from the study's metadata fields and follows this format: Principal Investigator(s). Title. Place-of-Distribution and Distributor, Date-of-Distribution. DOI.
<strong>You also must include the following paragraph in the Acknowledgements section of your publications:</strong>
This publication is based on public use data from the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS). The data are available from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan (https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35197). The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the STARRS investigators, funders, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.For additional information on the Army STARRS project, please visit the Army STARRS Web site.