# Toward Next Generation Data on Health and Life Changes at Older Ages

> **NIH NIH U01** · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · 2020 · $3,782,422

## Abstract

The goal of this proposal is to capture the progression of events and responses to these events in the
everyday life of middle-aged and older individuals. The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) has provided
major insights into the lives of middle-aged and older individuals based on interviews every two years. The
proposed study aims to advance further understanding through the use of intensive data collection and an
innovative design that allows very detailed and comprehensive data collection proximal to events hypothesized
to impact health and wellbeing, including but not limited to retirement. First, we plan to administer the core
HRS instrument every two years in the Understanding America Study (UAS, a probability-based Internet
panel), so that we have direct comparability with the HRS. Second, we will monitor important events in the
lives of older UAS respondents with brief, monthly assessments via the Internet, which will include anticipated
events (e.g. retirement, job change, change in marital status) and unanticipated events (e.g. deaths, illnesses,
job change); these assessments will signal an immediate intensive “burst” of data collection in order to better
link changes in life circumstances, health, behaviors, and well-being. Third, the intensive assessments will
track multiple domains of variables on a daily basis over an entire week, including daily pain, fatigue, physical
functioning, stress, wellbeing, exercise, diet, social interaction, sleep, and cognitive function. Fourth, the event-
based burst measurements will be embedded in the context of regular, annual intensive measurement bursts,
which serve as baselines for evaluating the impact of events. Fifth, we plan to conduct experiments within the
intensive assessments of the feasibility and utility of wearable sensors, some of which may be adopted for
permanent use in the study design. Overall, the goal is to provide a much richer picture of people's daily lives
both before and after retirement and other life events that will enable the study of pathways to many outcomes,
such as financial and subjective wellbeing, health, cognitive functioning, and social engagement. We expect
these data to be a valuable resource for the research community as it moves to more internet interviewing and
use of novel measurement devices.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10003932
- **Project number:** 5U01AG054580-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Arie Kapteyn
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $3,782,422
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-30 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10003932

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10003932, Toward Next Generation Data on Health and Life Changes at Older Ages (5U01AG054580-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10003932. Licensed CC0.

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