In response to the National Institute on Aging (NIA) request for applications to develop user-friendly mechanisms that facilitate secondary analysis of complex longitudinal or population-based surveys on adult health and aging, Sociometrics proposes to create a didactic (instructional) archive of social, behavioral, and medical research on aging in the United States and around the world. The main goal of this project is to provide data and services that support an infrastructure for the sharing of valuable public use datasets related to aging adults and that provide resources for learning how to use data more effectively. The foundation for these services is based on Sociometrics'more than 20 years of experience in data archiving, data dissemination, and provision of technical and research support to data users. The proposed archive will meet the objectives of the RFA by providing three products for a broad spectrum of data users who analyze, consume, or use data on the aging population to make informed decisions or influence policy. The proposed products are intended for academia, private industries in pharmaceuticals and health care, insurance providers, health maintenance organizations, and policy institutes devoted to health and the elderly. Three products will be produced by the completion of the Phase II project period: The Archive of Public Use Data on Aging will comprise a collection of existing public use files and new datasets that become available during the project period. Complex datasets will be modified for more effective secondary use and data extracts will be created for specific topically focused or subpopulation analysis. Data sets will be archived in a standardized and easy to manipulate format. The Analysis Guide for Data on Aging will offer instructional materials for data users, instructors, students, and those in industry that wish to gain a more complete understanding of how to manipulate and use complex datasets. The XML Codebook Repository will be created using a new program developed for converting dataset information into the XML codebook standards of the Data Documentation Initiative. There are many well-respected social science data archives in the United States. Data on the aging population are held by several organizations, including the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the National Institute on Aging, the National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and University of Michigan. For this project, our purpose is to create an additional resource for data on aging;to provide options and alternatives for data users who may need didactic materials, updated or improved versions of public use data;to create data extracts covering specific topics or subpopulations of interest;and to make available codebooks and supplementary information produced with current data processing standards. In this way, our efforts can only complement the work and offerings of other data archives. Sociometrics proposes to develop an easy to use data archive and accompanying data analysis resources that facilitate secondary analysis of complex longitudinal or population-based surveys on adult health and aging.
