These data comprise self-administered survey responses collected from participants enrolled in a responsible fatherhood program during 2021-2025, funded by a Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) grant. Survey participants were largely low-income, unmarried, non-resident fathers.

Data were collected at three time points: intake, baseline, and closing using the Qualtrics survey platform. On average, a respondent would complete the baseline survey within one to two weeks after completing the intake survey. Closing surveys were completed by participants six weeks after completing the baseline surveys.

Data contents span the following topics: challenges to fathering, experiences of institutional racism, father-child contact, activities done with child, self-esteem, interpersonal support, relationship satisfacton, and cumulative childhood adversity scores. All data (except childhood adversity data) is in a pre/post-test format.

Description of the data and file structure

responsible_fatherhood_northeast_data.zip contains a folder called Data/ and a data dictionary file.

Three data files are included within the Data/ folder, corresponding with survey responses from intake, baseline, and closing surveys. All verbatim responses have been removed, along with questions that served as direct and indirect identifiers. The date of the survey taken has been saved as only the year during which the survey was completed. Missing values are left as blanks.

For each data file:

• Row 1 contains the variable name
• Row 2 contains the question text
• Rows 3+ contain the survey responses

In compliance with grant requirements, nFORM ID numbers are included in each data file. These unique ID numbers can be used to link responses between the three surveys. nFORM is the name of the software platform used by HMRF grantees.

The Qualtrics_data_dictionary.csv file provides a data dictionary that describes all of the variables used across the three data files, including the possible response values. The full text of each survey question can be found in the dataset itself. Many standardized measures are used in this dataset; the abbreviations for each measure are written out below.

Acronyms

FRPN-MoFC: Fatherhood Research and Practice Network - Measure of Fatherhood Challenges

FRPN-FCC: Fatherhood Research and Practice Network - Measure of Father-Child Contact

RSES: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale

RSAT: Burns Relationship Satisfaction Scale

ISEL: Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (shortened version - 12 items)

JVQ-R2: Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire - 2nd Revision (Screener Sum Version, Adult Retrospective Form)

ACEs: Adverse Childhood Experiences

Human subjects data

All participants included in this study provided explicit, written consent that their de-identified data may be shared publicly. All indirect and direct identifiers have been removed from this data set.