The Gateway is looking for a Programmer Analyst with a strong quantitative background and interest in aging, public policy, and the social sciences to join our team!

Get more information, including how to apply, here:
https://usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-angeles/programmer-analyst-i/1209/72854054496

The Gateway team is excited to announce that for the first time users can now download all four of our Gateway Harmonized SHARE datasets directly from the SHARE website.

The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is a cross-national panel study focused on individuals aged 50 and older, along with their partners, who reside in private households across the 27 EU countries, Switzerland, and Israel. The primary aim of SHARE is to provide a robust data resource for analyzing the impact of health, social, economic, and environmental policies on aging. The survey captures a wide range of information, including demographics, health, cognition, healthcare utilization and costs, employment status, social networks, housing, income and assets, consumption, and expectations.

The Gateway team has developed four Gateway Harmonized datasets to support research:

• Gateway Harmonized SHARE: Longitudinal, comparable, research-ready variables derived from the SHARE core interviews conducted from 2004 to 2022.
• Gateway Harmonized SHARE End of Life: Comparable, research-ready variables created from end-of-life interviews with individuals knowledgeable about deceased respondents, conducted from 2006 to 2022.
• Gateway Harmonized SHARE Life History: Age-sequenced, comparable, research-ready variables based on SHARELIFE interviews covering respondents’ childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, conducted in 2008-2011 and 2017-2019.
• Gateway Harmonized SHARE COVID: Longitudinal, comparable, research-ready variables constructed from the SHARE Corona interviews conducted via telephone during the COVID-19 pandemic, between June - September 2020 and June - August 2021.

Each dataset is available in Stata, SPSS, and R formats and includes comprehensive documentation.

Download these valuable, internationally comparable datasets and their documentation today at: share-eric.eu/data/data-access

We are excited to announce the launch of the Gateway to Global Aging Data's new End-of-Life site! This site is designed to help facilitate the study of the end of life and its relation to the lifespan.

Since 1994, the majority of HRS family studies have conducted a separate interview with the next-of-kin or caretaker after a survey respondent has passed away. These interviews obtain information on key core content areas for the period between the last core interview and the death of the respondent, as well as to obtain information on the death of the respondent. Given the importance of this information, the Gateway has created a site dedicated specifically to these end-of-life surveys.

The Gateway to Global Aging End-of-Life Data Site offers the following key features:
- Study Overviews: Learn about each study with an end-of-life interview in the International Network of Health and Retirement Studies.
- Survey Questionnaires: View end-of-life survey questionnaires from each wave (interview year) of each study.
- Question Concordance: Compare end-of-life survey questions across studies and over time for selected topics.
- Survey Data Access: Access end-of-life survey data.
- Harmonized Data Overviews: Discover information about our Harmonized End-of-Life datasets.
- Harmonized Variable Concordance: Compare Harmonized End-of-Life variables by topic.
- Harmonized Data Access: Access Harmonized End-of-Life data.
- Publications: Explore topic- and study-specific end-of-life publications.

You can find all these features and more by visiting our new site at: eol.g2aging.org

As the Gateway continues to expand, we welcome your feedback as we seek to provide easy-to-understand and helpful information to further your research. Feel free to contact us at help@g2aging.org.

The Gateway to Global Aging Data would like to invite you to help shape research priorities related to aging and dementia at an upcoming virtual town hall hosted by the Gateway Exposome Coordinating Center (GECC). The town halls are scheduled for October 9th, November 4th, and December 10th.

What is the GECC?
The GECC is an NIA-funded initiative that brings together research experts and other partners to advance the science on sources of dementia risk and resilience. The GECC aims to contribute to our understanding of how life experiences and exposures shape the risk of dementia, how societal structures support aging populations, and what causes disparities in risk across populations.

Collectively, the features that influence health and well-being over a lifetime are known as the exposome, and we aim to identify research priorities and develop best practices for measuring, harmonizing, and using exposome data. You can learn more about the center at gatewayexposome.org.

Critical to this work are the voices of people across government, advocacy, academia, local communities, and industry who can share their expertise on what experiences may promote healthy aging and reduce risks of dementia. To hear these voices, the GECC is hosting a series of virtual town halls.

What will the town halls look like?
Hosted virtually on Zoom, participants will create an agenda that focuses on the topics and issues related to dementia that are most important to them. Breakout sessions will then be held around these topics so participants can have focused discussions and develop collaborative notes that will ultimately help other participants and the GECC shape the future of scientific research and policies related to aging.

When are the town halls?
Town halls will be held from October to December 2024, with two sessions each month to accommodate participants in different time zones. Participants need only attend one session but are welcome to attend multiple. The dates and times will be as follows:
Wednesday, October 9
- Session 1: 9-10:30 AM EST/3-4:30 PM CET
- Session 2: 2-3:30 PM EST/11-12:30 PM PST
Monday, November 4
- Session 1: 9-10:30 AM EST/3-4:30 PM CET
- Session 2: 2-3:30 PM EST/11-12:30 PM PST
Tuesday, December 10
- Session 1: 9-10:30 AM EST/3-4:30 PM CET
- Session 2: 2-3:30 PM EST/11-12:30 PM PST

Learn more and register for a townhall on our website. We encourage you to share this with your colleagues who maybe interested, and please reach out to us at townhalls@gatewayexposome.org if you have any questions.

We look forward to seeing you soon at an upcoming town hall!

The Gateway to Global Aging team is soliciting applications for a half-day workshop at the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) conference on November 13th from 10-3 in Seattle, WA. The goal of the workshop will be to kickstart research projects using new data resources available in the Gateway Data Enclave, a recently introduced data access and computing resource. Available resources will include two analysis-ready datasets that are designed to facilitate studies focused on cross-national comparisons:

1. Harmonized longitudinal data on functional limitations from both the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) (United States) and the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing (ELSA) (England)
2. Data from the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) studies in the US, England, Chile, and India, including harmonized cognitive variables and data on hypothesized risk factors and early life exposures from the linked Core studies.

Applications are due by September 6th, and include a brief proposal for a research project to be worked on in conjunction with the workshop. Proposals may focus on analyses that can be conducted with one of the two specialized analysis datasets available in the Enclave or could use other data resources available within the Enclave environment (HRS, ELSA, the Longitudinal Aging Study in India [LASI], Chilean Social Protection Survey [SPS], Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Aging [NICOLA]).

The workshop will be capped at 20 participants, and all participants will receive feedback and hands-on assistance from the Gateway team on their research projects, opportunities to network with senior researchers affiliated with the Gateway to Global Aging team, lunch during the workshop, and a $300 stipend to offset travel costs.

Apply for the Enclave Workshop here

Learn more about the Gateway to Global Aging Data Enclave here: https://g2aging.org/enclave

Watch a Gateway webinar introducing the Enclave and the GSA Workshop on our Webinars & Presentations page

We are pleased to announce the addition of the Education Policy Series to the Gateway Policy Explorer. The Education Policy Series captures differences in education policies across countries and changes over time. The first policy covered in the series is compulsory schooling, including school leaving age and duration. The initial release features 21 countries and 8 states in India. Additional countries and Indian states will be added over time. The Education Policy Series is also being extended to include state-level differences in compulsory schooling in the United States (expected September 2024) and cross-country differences in educational tracking (expected 2025).

These policies are available to view and compare online or download on our Education Policies page.

The American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) is now accepting submissions for a new special issue on "Cross-National Comparisons of Social, Physical, Mental, and Cognitive Health in Older Populations".

Manuscripts will be accepted and published online on a rolling basis and will appear together in a single print issue. For this issue, the AJE is seeking submissions of original research articles and data-driven commentaries. Articles may showcase novel approaches to leveraging cross-national data to understand the epidemiology of key gerontological factors, including social, physical, mental, and cognitive health; contribute information about such conditions; or identify and suggest important areas of future cross-national research.

Submit your paper by September 1, 2024. For more information, please see here.

Wednesday, May 29, 2024 at 9:00 AM LA / 12 noon NY / 5:00 PM London

This webinar will provide an overview of the Gateway to Global Aging Data's Policy Explorer Retirement Series, which captures historical retirement policies across 15 countries, allowing users to compare policies, countries, and time periods. Additionally, the webinar will introduce harmonized contextual retirement variables that will be included in the Gateway's harmonized data set. These harmonized variables, which cover benefit eligibility and generosity, have been standardized across surveys in the United States (HRS), England (ELSA), Korea (KLoSA), and several European countries including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain (SHARE).

Register here.

The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Berlin Institute and the Gateway are seeking submissions for the SHARE-Gateway User Conference 2024.

The Conference, held in Berlin, Germany from November 6 to 8, 2024, is soliciting presentations of papers on any topics covered in the international network of health and retirement studies, especially cross-country work on health, aging, and retirement.

Submit your paper or extended abstract by July 15, 2024 to share-gateway.conference@g2aging.org. For more information, please see here.

Tuesday, May 7, 2024 at 10:00 AM LA / 1:00 PM NY

The Gateway to Global Aging Data is a free public resource designed to facilitate cross-national and longitudinal studies on aging using the Health and Retirement Study – International Network of Studies. This webinar will introduce researchers to this network using the Gateway and our Harmonized datasets. Join our webinar to learn more about what’s available on the Gateway, how these research-ready variables are constructed, and how to get access to these user-friendly and easily accessible datasets.

Register here.

Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 12 noon LA / 3:00 PM NY

What can we learn about Stress and Emotional Well-being around the world? The Gateway and the NIA Stress Measurement Network will be hosting a webinar designed to answer this question. This webinar will provide three short presentations of new analysis using the stress and emotional well-being measures asked in the HRS family of studies. It will conclude with a tutorial introducing the documentation and harmonized variables the Gateway has put together to help you get started using these measures for your own research.

The webinar agenda can be found here.

Register here.

We are please to announce the release of dementia imputation data for LASI.

The dataset is available for download from the Gateway to Global Aging Data.

We are excited to announce the launch of the Gateway's new Environmental Exposome Dashboard. This site showcases the harmonized environmental measures that we are linking to survey data from the HRS international family. On the Dashboard, users can view detailed data descriptions as well as visualize different environmental exposures across time and space.

The Gateway is seeking submissions for a symposium at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) in Seattle, Washington from November 13 to 16, 2024.

The session, titled "Health Impacts of the Social and Physical Environment in Global and Cross-National Studies", is soliciting presentations of papers that leverage Harmonized datafiles from one or more countries.

Submit your 250-word abstract here by February 26, 2024.

We are pleased to announce an updated to the Harmonized Mex-Cog data. Version A.2 includes several new demographic variables and variable name and label adjustments to maintain comparability with other Harmonized HCAP datasets.

The dataset is available for download from the MHAS website.

We are excited to announce the launch of the Gateway to Global Aging Data Enclave. The Gateway's Data Enclave is a secure remote-access computing desktop hosted on the National Institute on Aging's LINKAGE platform. Through the Enclave, users are provided access to the Gateway's Harmonized data products and original survey data. The Enclave also provides users with analytic packages like R, SAS, and Stata and productivity software like Adobe Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Notepad++.

More information is available on our Enclave page.

The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is hosting a virtual workshop from December 4-6 on Life History Data in the HRS.

The workshop will give an overview of the life history data resources in the HRS, with a special focus on the Life History Mail Survey, which was fielded in 2015, 2017, and 2019 and obtains detailed retrospective residential, educational, occupational, and partnership histories of HRS participant prior to age 50. The workshop will also feature the Harmonized Life History datasets and include an example analysis using the Harmonized SHARE Life History dataset.

Register by November 27, 2023. For more information, or to register, please see here.

Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8:00 AM LA / 11:00 AM NY / 4:00 PM London / 9:30 PM New Delhi

This webinar will highlight a recent project from the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health (CBPH) that harmonized four blood-based biomarkers (C-reactive protein (CRP), glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and total (TC) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol) across population-based health surveys in the United States (HRS, MIDUS), England (ELSA), Ireland (TILDA), Northern Ireland (NICOLA), China (CHARLS), India (LASI, LASI-DAD), Indonesia (IFLS), and Brazil (ELSI). Join our webinar to learn more about how the harmonization was conducted and how to get started using harmonized biomarker data to conduct more valid cross-study/cross-country comparative research.

Register here.

The UC Berkeley Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA) and the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health (CBPH) are seeking submissions for the 2024 Workshop on Determinants of Adult Mortality, Morbidity, and Healthy Aging in LMICs.

The Workshop, held virtually on Friday, February 23, 2024, is soliciting presentations of papers using data from one or more LMICs, particularly from longitudinal HRS family studies such as those in Brazil (ELSI), China (CHARLS), Costa Rica (CRELES), Korea (KLoSA), India (LASI), Mexico (MHAS), and South Africa (HAALSI). It also welcomes papers using other LMIC micro-data as well as comparisons with data from high-income countries such as the US (HRS), Japan (JSTAR), England (ELSA), and Europe (SHARE).

Submit your one-page abstracts by November 1, 2023 to ceda@berkeley.edu. For more information, please see here.

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Long-Term Care (LTC) Policy Series. The LTC Series captures historical public care policies in 7 counties and 5 U.S. states and allows users to compare across policy, country or state, and time. The included countries are Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, England, and the United States. The included U.S. states are California, Florida, Michigan, New York, and Texas.

These policies are available for download on our Long-Term Care Policies page.

We are pleased to announce a major update to the Harmonized HRS data. Version D includes Wave 15, conducted from March 2020 to May 2021, and a number of new variables, including positive and negative affect items and domain-specific satisfaction.

The dataset is available for download from the HRS website.

We are pleased to announce an update to the Physical and Anthropometric Measurement User Guide. This guide provides a resource for comparing height, weight, blood pressure, grip strength, and other measurements that are collected across studies in the International Network of Health and Retirement Studies.

The user guide is available for download on our User Guides page.

We are pleased to announce the release of the Retirement Policy Series for Belgium and Ireland. The Retirement Series captures historical retirement policies and allows users to compare across policy, country, and time.

These policies are available for download on our Retirement Policies page.

Monday, July 31, 2023 at 9:15 AM LA / 12:15 PM NY

The Gateway to Global Aging Data is hosting our first Research Hackathon from July 31 to August 3. This four-day team-based event is intended for early-career investigators who are focused on finding and sharing insights from large, rich, and complex aging data around the world. This webinar will be a livestream of the morning presentations given by the Hackathon’s coaches on July 31 to kick off the Hackathon. Join our webinar to learn more about cognitive aging and the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment of Dementia, considerations for cross-country analyses of cognitive data, and best methodological practices for studying cognitive aging.

Register here.

We are pleased to announce a major update to the Harmonized HRS COVID data. Version B includes the Perspectives on the Pandemic Mail Survey, conducted from May 2021 to June 2022, and a number of new variables, including antibody test results and long-term health problems.

The dataset is available for download from the HRS website.

We are pleased to announce a major update to the Harmonized SHARE COVID data. Version B includes Round 2 of the SHARE Corona Survey, conducted from June to August 2023, and a number of new variables, including self-reported health and social contact.

The dataset can be created using the Harmonized SHARE COVID Creation Code.

We are pleased to announce the release of the Harmonized version of the 2018 Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) sub-study of ELSA. Version A maintains comparability with other Harmonized HCAP datasets and includes imputations for cognition and informant report variables.

The dataset is available for download from the UK Data Service.

We are pleased to announce a major update to the Harmonized KLoSA data. Version E includes Wave 8, conducted in 2020, and adds new variables related to healthcare and household characteristics.

The dataset can be created using the Harmonized KLoSA Creation Code.

We are pleased to announce a major update to Harmonized KLoSA End of Life data. Version B includes Wave 8, conducted in 2020.

The dataset can be created using the Harmonized KLoSA End of Life Creation Code.

We are pleased to announce the release of the Harmonized version of the 2016 Cognitive Aging Ancillary Study (Mex-Cog) sub-study of MHAS. Version A includes imputations for cognition and informant report variables.

The dataset is available for download from the MHAS website.

We are pleased to announce an update to the Harmonized LASI data. Version A.3 includes data from Sikkim state that was collected in 2020-2021.

The dataset is available for download from the Gateway to Global Aging Data.

We are pleased to announce an update to the LASI Wave 1 data. Version B includes data from Sikkim state that was collected in 2020-2021.

The dataset is available for download from the Gateway to Global Aging Data.

Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 8:00am LA / 11:00am NY / 4:00pm London

This webinar offers an introduction to the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and to the Gateway to Global Aging Data. It will cover ELSA's sampling framework, data collection, linkages to administrative data, and distributed datasets. This webinar will also highlight the harmonized versions of the ELSA data, including the Harmonized ELSA, Harmonized ELSA Life History, and Harmonized ELSA End of Life datasets. Finally, this webinar will include a brief demonstration of a research analysis using the Harmonized ELSA dataset in Stata. This example analysis will be helpful for researchers looking to conduct research using the international family of Health and Retirement surveys and using the ELSA in particular.

Register here.

Thursday, April 27, 2023 at 8:00 AM LA /11:00 AM NY / 3:00 PM London / 8:30 PM New Delhi

This webinar will introduce researchers to the Harmonized Longitudinal Aging Study in India data family which includes user-friendly versions of LASI, LASI-DAD, and LASI COVID data. LASI is the newest study in the international family of Health and Retirement Studies and it includes a population representative sample of individuals living in India aged 45 and older. LASI-DAD is an in-depth study of cognitive aging and dementia for a sub-sample of LASI. LASI COVID is a bi-monthly phone survey of LASI-DAD households that collected information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Join our webinar to learn more about what's contained in the LASI data family, how these research-ready variables are constructed, and how to get started using these user-friendly and easily accessible datasets, including an example analysis.

Register here.

We are pleased to announce the release of the Harmonized version of the 2014 CHARLS Life History Survey.

The dataset is available for download from the CHARLS website.

We are pleased to announce the release of the Harmonized version of the 2013 CHARLS Exit Interview.

The dataset is available for download from the CHARLS website.