On November 13, 2024, the Gateway team hosted the first Gateway Data Enclave Workshop during the Gerontological Society of America Annual Meeting in Seattle. This workshop kicked off research projects using new data resources available in the Gateway Data Enclave. (For more information about the Enclave, check out our previous blog post here.) It also featured a networking lunch with experts from the National Institute on Aging, American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), and representatives from ten domestic and international academic institutions. 

Aimed at early-career investigators interested in global aging data and the HRS international network of studies, the Gateway team solicited applications from the Gateway community and selected sixteen researchers to prepare research proposals, explore data, and conduct preliminary analyses within the Enclave. At the time of the workshop, the Enclave housed publicly available data from the HRS in the United States, ELSA in England, LASI in India, SPS in Chile, and NICOLA in Northern Ireland, as well as two specialized analysis datasets developed by the Gateway team for the Enclave. These two specialized analysis datasets focused on harmonized longitudinal data on disability from both the HRS and ELSA and cross-country cognition data, using data from the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) studies in the US, England, and India.

Following a brief overview of the Gateway, participants presented their research proposals and preliminary analyses. Presentations were grouped into five sessions: chronic conditions, psychosocial factors, biomarkers, dementia, and long-term care and the care environment. The chronic conditions session featured several presentations investigating the relationship between cardiovascular diseases and cognitive aging across the HCAP studies, as well as presentations examining diabetes and pain in disability across the US and the UK. The psychosocial factors session featured presentations focused primarily on social isolation, loneliness, and depression and their impact on cognitive aging across the HRS, ELSA, and LASI studies, and their respective HCAPs.

In the biomarkers session, presenters discussed the development of a novel aging biomarker to quantify aging processes across the US and the UK. The workshop’s session about dementia presented various methods of estimating the prevalence of dementia in the HCAP studies and investigated the link between instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) and increased risk of cognitive impairment across the HRS and ELSA. And, in the final session, presentations investigated the care environment of older adults with dementia, caregiver experiences and their link to increased risk of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD), as well as disability risk factors across healthcare systems across the HRS, ELSA, LASI, NICOLA, and HCAP studies.

At the end of each presentation and session, workshop participants and senior researchers provided suggestions. Additionally, the workshop concluded with participant feedback and suggested improvements for the workshop and the Enclave user experience. This feedback was critical to the success of the workshop and is now guiding our efforts to improve the Gateway Data Enclave. Based on participant suggestions for improving the Enclave user experience, we are currently updating the Enclave User Guide to further explain how to navigate between the four interactive remote desktops and run analyses.

As always, feel free to reach out to the Gateway Enclave Help Desk at enclave@g2aging.org if you have any questions or to provide any feedback on what would be useful for future workshops or Enclave resources. Since the workshop, the Enclave also hosts select sensitive exposome data files for the LASI-DAD (with more data soon to come for other studies), which users can apply for access by submitting an application for sensitive-use data.

The Gateway plans to host another Enclave workshop this year, focusing on the available exposome data hosted in the Enclave, so make sure to sign up for data alerts and announcements in your profile to stay connected and learn when we will open our next call for proposals!