This proposal requests support for a three-day scientific conference that will assemble experts in the field of aging to examine research issues and resources in three broad areas: health behaviors and well-being of the elderly, the demography and economics of aging, and epidemiological risk factors in aging. The conference will have five primary goals: identification of the central research issues in each of these areas; assessment of the adequacy of available data to address these research issues; identification of data needs; improvement of measurement of basic concepts in each area; and identification of intersections between these three major substantive areas in terms of common data, measurement, and analysis needs. The conference, sponsored by the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA) project, builds upon a period of intensive prior work identifying and assessing research data resources in each of the three areas and will refine, extend, and communicate the results of that work. Papers will be prepared in advance of the conference for circulation to participants and subsequently revised and published, with commentaries, in a proposed volume.
