| Detailed Objective: In January 2003, a new survey to measure how Americans spend their time went into production. The primary purpose of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), conducted by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), are to improve estimates of time spent in non-market activities as well as market-related work and to provide data on a variety of quality-of-life indices beyond income and earnings. The primary focus of the ATUS is on the respondent's previous day's activities.
Prior work by BLS on questionnaire development and pre-testing focused primarily on developing questions to measure time spent on primary activities. This project will pretest a module of questions involving eating as a secondary activity. This information, along with height and weight, will allow for research on time use patterns as they relate to obesity risk. Questions on food assistance participation will also be tested. These questions when included in the ATUS will allow for research on time use patterns of participants and non-participants.
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