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.