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Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation: Eight Sites within the United States, 2003-2013

Published by ACF | U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | Catalog Last Checked: July 31, 2026 at 09:25 PM | Dataset Last Updated: July 03, 2025
The Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) evaluation was launched in 2003 to develop, to implement, and to test the effectiveness of a program aimed at strengthening low-income couples' marriages as one approach for supporting stable and nurturing family environments and parents' and children's well-being. The evaluation was led by MDRC and was sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families, United States Department of Health and Human Services.The SHM program was a voluntary yearlong marriage education program for low-income married couples who had children or were expecting a child. The program provided a series of group workshops based on structured curricula designed to enhance couples' relationships; supplemental activities to build on workshop themes; and family support services to address participation barriers, connect families with other services, and reinforce curricular themes. The study sample consists of 6,298 couples (12,596 adult sample members) who were expecting a child or had a child under 18 years old at the time of study entry. The sample consists primarily of low-to-modest income, married couples with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. In each family, one child was randomly selected to be the focus of any child-related measures gathered in the data collection activities. These children ranged from pre-birth to 14 years old at the time of enrollment in the study. Follow-up interviews were conducted at 12 and 30 months after baseline data collection. More detail is provided in the study documentation. Units of Response: Low-income married couples with children Type of Data: Evaluation Tribal Data: No COVID-19 Data: No Periodicity: One-time SORN: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/09/19/2022-20139/privacy-act-of-1974-system-of-records Data Use Agreement: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/rpxlogin Data Use Agreement Location: https://www.childandfamilydataarchive.org/cfda/archives/cfda/studies/36852/datadocumentation Equity Indicators: Sex Granularity: Household;Individual Spatial: United States Geocoding: Unavailable

Resources

34 resources available

  • The Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation: Early Impacts on Low-Income Families

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  • The Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation: Final Implementation Findings

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  • DS2 12-Month Survey

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  • DS2 12-Month Survey

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  • DS3 Management Information System (MIS) Extended Activities

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  • DS3 Management Information System (MIS) Extended Activities

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  • DS4 Management Information System (MIS) Family Support Coordinator Contacts

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  • DS4 Management Information System (MIS) Family Support Coordinator Contacts

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  • DS5 Management Information System (MIS) Marriage Education Groups

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  • DS5 Management Information System (MIS) Marriage Education Groups

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  • DS6 Management Information System (MIS) Payments

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  • DS6 Management Information System (MIS) Payments

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  • DS7 Management Information System (MIS) Referrals

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  • DS7 Management Information System (MIS) Referrals

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  • DS1 Baseline Data

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  • DS1 Baseline Data

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  • DS11 30-Month Outcomes Dataset

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  • DS11 30-Month Outcomes Dataset

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  • DS12 30-Month Survey

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  • DS12 30-Month Survey

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  • DS13 30-Month Youth Survey Dataset

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  • DS13 30-Month Youth Survey Dataset

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  • DS15 Child Longitudinal File

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  • DS15 Child Longitudinal File

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  • DS14 Direct Child Assessment Dataset

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  • DS14 Direct Child Assessment Dataset

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  • DS10 Observational Study - Inter-rater Reliability Dataset

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  • DS10 Observational Study - Inter-rater Reliability Dataset

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  • DS16 Standardized Baseline Dataset

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  • DS16 Standardized Baseline Dataset

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  • DS8 Observational Study - Adult Dataset

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  • DS8 Observational Study - Adult Dataset

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  • DS9 Observational Study - Child Dataset

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  • DS9 Observational Study - Child Dataset

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