The goal of this renewal application is to continue and to enhance our current project, the Gateway to Global Aging Data (g2aging.org), a data and information platform developed to facilitate longitudinal and cross-country analyses on aging, especially those using the family of Health and Retirement Studies (HRS) around the world. The Gateway has indexed metadata from 12 surveys in 30 countries and has created 11,540 key harmonized variables on demographics, health, health care, cognition, financial and housing wealth, income, consumption, pension, retirement, employment history, and family structure, enabling cross-wave, cross-country search and analysis. We now have 1,486 registered users, in addition to numerous non-registered users from 165 countries who visit our site. Cumulatively, there have been 69,529 sessions, viewing a total of 593,107 pages. Prior to development of the Gateway, several barriers limited the use of HRS-family surveys for cross-wave and cross-country research. These included the difficulty of identifying concordance information, the need to merge multiple data files, dispersed documentation, and the lack of knowledge of what is available. The Gateway makes analyses of HRS-family surveys across time and countries much easier, lowering the costs of entry for new researchers and saving time and effort for experienced researchers. Our harmonized datasets have enabled users to build analysis datasets more accurately, easily, and quickly, generating an average time savings of 8 weeks per project for our users. Our registered users published 227 papers in the past two years, and even more users reported using the Gateway for their course work, conference presentations, and working papers for academic publications. In this application, we aim to incorporate additional longitudinal, harmonized variables which offer great scientific promise and are often requested by users, specifically those on biomarkers, disability, pension wealth and incentives to retire, social connectedness and isolation, psychosocial, next-of-kin interviews for the deceased, and life-history interviews. We also seek technological advancements in data structure and visualizations. We have developed a more aggressive outreach strategy in this application, including organizing pre/post conferences and methodological workshops on cross-country analysis; coordinating symposia; training users through user workshops and webinars; building an active and engaged user community through social media; continuing to disseminate through exhibits; and providing user support through our help desk. The proposed work will improve the information and the data we provide and lower the barriers to conducting longitudinal or cross-country research using HRS-family surveys, benefiting the larger research community. Exit data and life-history data, as well as other key variables, such as psychosocial variables, have never been harmonized. Incorporating these new data will expedite the speed of scientific discoveries in less-researched areas and offers great scientific promise.

Public Health Relevance

The Gateway to Global Aging Data (g2aging.org) is a data and information platform developed to facilitate longitudinal and cross-country analyses on aging, especially those using the family of Health and Retirement Studies (HRS) around the world (12 surveys in 30 countries). The Gateway makes analyses of HRS-family surveys across time and countries much easier, lowering the costs of entry for new researchers and saving time and effort even for experienced researchers. The proposed expansion and improvement will help numerous interested researchers and thereby accelerate the speed of scientific discoveries.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
3R01AG030153-15S1
Application #
10123344
Study Section
Social Sciences and Population Studies A Study Section (SSPA)
Program Officer
Phillips, John
Project Start
2007-05-01
Project End
2022-03-31
Budget Start
2020-08-01
Budget End
2021-03-31
Support Year
15
Fiscal Year
2020
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Southern California
Department
Type
Other Specialized Schools
DUNS #
072933393
City
Los Angeles
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
90089
Lee, Jinkook; Smith, James P (2018) Fertility behaviors in South Korea and their association with ultrasound prenatal sex screening. SSM Popul Health 4:10-16
Liao, Jing; Muniz-Terrera, Graciela; Scholes, Shaun et al. (2018) Lifestyle index for mortality prediction using multiple ageing cohorts in the USA, UK and Europe. Sci Rep 8:6644
Lee, Jinkook; Phillips, Drystan; Wilkens, Jenny et al. (2018) Cross-Country Comparisons of Disability and Morbidity: Evidence from the Gateway to Global Aging Data. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 73:1519-1524
Suemoto, Claudia Kimie; Ueda, Peter; Beltrán-Sánchez, Hiram et al. (2017) Development and Validation of a 10-Year Mortality Prediction Model: Meta-Analysis of Individual Participant Data From Five Cohorts of Older Adults in Developed and Developing Countries. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 72:410-416
Martin, Linda G; Zimmer, Zachary; Lee, Jinkook (2017) Foundations of Activity of Daily Living Trajectories of Older Americans. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 72:129-139
Manski, Richard; Moeller, John (2017) Barriers to oral health across selected European countries and the USA. Int Dent J 67:133-138
GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators (2017) Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet 390:1345-1422
Manski, Richard; Moeller, John; Chen, Haiyan et al. (2017) Disparity in dental out-of-pocket payments among older adult populations: a comparative analysis across selected European countries and the USA. Int Dent J 67:157-171
Delavande, Adeline; Lee, Jinkook; Menon, Seetha (2017) Eliciting Survival Expectations of the Elderly in Low-Income Countries: Evidence From India. Demography 54:673-699
Marshall, Alan; Nazroo, James; Feeney, Kevin et al. (2016) Comparison of hypertension healthcare outcomes among older people in the USA and England. J Epidemiol Community Health 70:264-70

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