Supplement to LASI for continued main survey support

Arokiasamy, Perianayagam; Bloom, David; Lee, Jinkook

Abstract

. The Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI) is a nationally representative survey of aging, health, and retirement, which aims to provide data for innovative, rigorous, multidisciplinary studies of aging that will inform policy and advance scientific knowledge. LASI will provide data that are harmonized with the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) family of studies for cross-national analysis and comparison. The original LASI R01 (1R01AG042778-01A1) provides funding to develop and implement two waves of a comprehensive panel study of aging in India with a target sample of 18,000 respondents in the 15 most populous states of India, whose combined populations represent about 90% of India?s total population. Additional funding from the Government of India (GoI) allowed LASI to expand its target sample to 61,000 individuals across all of India?s 36 states and union territories, allowing the survey to be representative and well powered at both the state and national levels. However, as of May 28, 2019, we have collected data from more than 72,000 individuals for Wave 1. This figure could go up to ~75,000 once the data collection of the two remaining states (Sikkim and Meghalaya) is complete. The expansion of the sample from 18,000 to ~75,000 individual surveys (as well as associated household and community surveys) has placed an additional burden on the HSPH and USC teams, as 100% of GoI funding goes to the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), LASI?s Indian partner organization and a key collaborator on the original LASI R01. This Administrative Supplement application seeks supplemental funding for the HSPH and USC teams to provide continued technical support activities, including, development and testing of the survey instrument for Wave 2, providing support in devising the sampling frame, programming and maintenance of the custom computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) application on which all individual, household, and community surveys are conducted; training of trainers and field investigators; real-time data monitoring and quality control assessments; data processing, cleaning, coding, and imputation, as well as production of detailed data codebooks and manuals; descriptive, cross-sectional, and longitudinal data analysis; collaboration on preparation of official documents and manuals related to LASI; and support in training and field monitoring, for the portion of the total, expanded sample not covered by the original LASI R01.

Public Health Relevance

The proposed LASI Administrative Supplement will fund the efforts of the HSPH and USC teams in providing continued technical support for data collection efforts for the portion of the total, expanded sample not covered under the original LASI R01, and to complete the fieldwork, analyses, and data release for the first Wave, and make substantial progress on undertaking the fieldwork and analyses for the Phase 1 of Wave 2.