The National Social Life Health and Aging Project (NSHAP) is a population-based study of health, social life, and well-being among older Americans. This unique project integrates social and biological methodologies to understand healthy aging. An important goal of NSHAP is to create high quality data to be used by researchers investigating the relationships between health and social processes among older Americans. To this end, we propose to establish a workshop which will encourage the use of the data by a variety of researchers from across the country. The workshop is designed to encourage the use of the NSHAP data, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and develop a network of scholars familiar with NSHAP and dedicated to interdisciplinary aging research. The workshop will be a competitive, 2 day conference located in downtown Chicago. The workshop will solicit proposals to present innovative findings using the NSHAP data. Proposals to use the NSHAP data will be reviewed for their relevance to aging and health, their multi-disciplinary approach in using the data and their scientific validity. Researchers submitting accepted proposals (approximately 20) will be given 6 months to pursue their research and will, subsequently, be invited to present their results at the workshop. In addition to the NSHAP investigative team, a panel of discussants will attend the workshop to lend their expertise to the discussion of the research findings. Discussants will be solicited from a number of different fields including sociology, sexuality, and the medical and health sciences. The workshop will also include a session designed to allow researchers to express their concerns or suggestions about the data and its use to NSHAP staff. The meeting space and equipment will be planned to maximize group discussion and participant engagement. We propose an early results workshop using the NSHAP data to encourage interdisciplinary research in health and aging. ? ? Project Summary/Abstract: The National Social Life Health and Aging Project (NSHAP) is a population-based study of health, social life, and well-being among older Americans. This unique project integrates social and biological methodologies to understand healthy aging. An important goal of NSHAP is to create high quality data to be used by researchers investigating the relationships between health and social processes among older Americans. To this end, we propose to establish a workshop which will encourage the use of the data by a variety of researchers from across the country. The workshop is designed to encourage the use of the NSHAP data, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and develop a network of scholars familiar with NSHAP and dedicated to interdisciplinary aging research. The workshop will be a competitive, 2 day conference located in downtown Chicago. The workshop will solicit proposals to present innovative findings using the NSHAP data. Proposals to use the NSHAP data will be reviewed for their relevance to aging and health, their multi-disciplinary approach in using the data and their scientific validity. Researchers submitting accepted proposals (approximately 20) will be given 6 months to pursue their research and will, subsequently, be invited to present their results at the workshop. In addition to the NSHAP investigative team, a panel of discussants will attend the workshop to lend their expertise to the discussion of the research findings. Discussants will be solicited from a number of different fields including sociology, sexuality, and the medical and health sciences. The workshop will also include a session designed to allow researchers to express their concerns or suggestions about the data and its use to NSHAP staff. The meeting space and equipment will be planned to maximize group discussion and participant engagement. Project Narrative ? ? We propose an early results workshop using the NSHAP data to encourage interdisciplinary research in health and aging. ? ? ?
