Monitoring the Future

is an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of Americans from adolescence through adulthood. Each year, more than 25,000 8th, 10th and 12th grade students are surveyed as part of the MTF Main study (12th graders since 1975, and 8th and 10th graders since 1991) and approximately 20,000 adults ages 19 to 65 are surveyed as part of the MTF Panel study. The Monitoring the Future Panel study conducts annual follow up surveys with a subsample of each graduating class, who complete a follow up every two years from ages 19–30 and every five years from age 35 onward. The Monitoring the Future Study has been funded under a series of investigator-initiated competing research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a part of the National Institutes of Health. MTF is conducted at the Survey Research Center in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

For additional information regarding the Monitoring the Future study, please e-mail us.

2026 Press Releases

Rural-urban divide: Neighborhood conditions shape teen smoking. A new University of Michigan study highlights a distinct rural-urban gap in adolescent health. It reports that the link between neighborhood disadvantage and cigarette use appears only in rural areas. Teens in poor rural neighborhoods are more likely to smoke cigarettes than their peers in less disadvantaged rural areas.

The brain remembers: The hidden cost of young adult substance abuse. Young adults who heavily use substances may report significantly poorer memory decades later, a new University of Michigan study suggests. Researchers tracked how frequently participants reported binge drinking and daily—or near-daily—use of alcohol, cannabis and cigarettes between ages 18 and 30. They then compared those patterns with self-reported poor memory at ages 50 to 65.