# National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project: Round 5

> **NIH NIH R01** · NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH CENTER · 2024 · $5,093,662

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
 The National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) is a nationally representative longitudinal study
that focuses on the links between social, cognitive, mental, and physical health trajectories among older adults
in the U.S. Beginning in 2005–06, with respondents ages 57 to 85, NSHAP has collected four rounds of data at
5-year intervals and included detailed information on: social well-being, including social relationships, social
networks and social support; cognitive function, including Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease related
dementias (AD/ADRD); mental health; physical performance; clinical diagnoses of cognitive and physical
disease; biological samples; medications; sensory function; and accelerometer-measured daily activity and
sleep. Additional data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic on respondents’ health and experiences.
 The proposed NSHAP Round 5 (R5) will provide a fifth wave of data for Cohort 1 (born 1920-1947), a third
wave for Cohort 2 (born 1948-1965), and a first wave for a newly recruited Cohort 3 (born 1966-1980). Together,
the three cohorts will include adults aged 47 to 107. The experiences of people born after 1965 have differed
dramatically from those born earlier and R5 will allow researchers to examine how the complex interplay of social
and historical factors affects health trajectories as people age.
 In addition to the newly recruited Cohort 3, this study proposes to restructure the NSHAP sample to enhance
the power of ethnoracial comparisons both in the new cohort and in the older cohorts by augmenting the greatly
diminished surviving samples of Black and Hispanic respondents among Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 and recruiting
equal numbers of Black, Hispanic, and White plus Other adults in Cohort 3.
 R5 will include repeat and new measures to permit cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Survey
measures new to R5 will include questions about ethnoracial identity, discrimination over the lifespan,
immigration experiences, language use, and social media use. We will also collect objective measures of health
for cognition and AD/ADRD, sensory and physical functioning, wrist accelerometry, and anthropometrics. For the
first time in NSHAP, we will include dominant grip strength, an objective online hearing test, leukocyte
differentiation, Cystatin C for kidney function, and AD/ADRD plasma biomarkers.
 Data collected will permit examination of the social determinants of health disparities within and between
ethnoracial groups, cohorts, and dyads. R5 will also provide the metrics to identify respondents with high mortality
risk, which will enable us to prepare for a targeted, inter-round, follow-up study, to be proposed separately.
 R5 data will be archived and made publicly available at NACDA at the University of Michigan. NSHAP’s
unparalleled combination of detailed social and biological measures make it uniquely suited to inform and support
the work of medical practitio...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10981681
- **Project number:** 2R01AG048511-11
- **Recipient organization:** NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** LINDA J WAITE
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $5,093,662
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2014-09-15 → 2029-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10981681

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10981681, National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project: Round 5 (2R01AG048511-11). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-08 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10981681. Licensed CC0.

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