The UAS is a panel of American households recruited across the entire United States. UAS respondents answer survey questions once or twice a month via a powerful, yet user-friendly online interface. Currently, the panel encompasses adults nationwide aged 18 and over, recruited via Address Based Sampling from post office delivery sequence files. Most panel members have their own online access; others have been provided by UAS with a tablet and/or an Internet subscription.

A cohort profile paper, providing a comprehensive overview of the UAS, can be found here: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/10/e088183.

Data collected by the UAS is made publicly available for analysis and is typically released daily. Data from different surveys can be linked using the unique UAS members’ identifiers. All available data sets are listed in the UAS Data pages and can be accessed upon free registration as a data user. Each survey data set includes basic demographic information retrieved from the My Household survey, which is completed by all panel members upon joining the study and updated quarterly.

Surveys commissioned by CESR researchers, clients, international universities, and government agencies aim to generate insights into decision-making, social and economic policy, health, and individual well-being. Global researchers propose survey questionnaires, which are then refined and rigorously tested by the UAS team before being distributed to panel participants.

The UAS offers a flexible data collection platform, allowing the combination of diverse data from multiple sources, such as online surveys, wearable devices, and administrative records. It also serves as an excellent resource for methodological research, enabling experiments on information presentation, question wording, item placement within questionnaires, and the testing or validation of survey instruments.

Conducting surveys with the UAS is easy and supported at every stage. Whether you have a research question, a preliminary survey concept, or a fully developed survey instrument, the UAS team offers expert guidance in survey development and design, ensuring methodological rigor and reliability through comprehensive testing prior to data collection. Throughout the data collection phase, data is updated daily. The final data set, including sample weights, is delivered promptly upon the close of the fielding period

More information for UAS clients can be found on the For Clients page.