BSR Data Review Public Input

National Institute on Aging Data Review Committee Welcomes Public Input

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) is conducting a review of data needs for behavioral and social science research on aging. The NIA-convened Data Review Committee welcomes input from the research community and other interested parties representing views on both past and future activities. Specifically, how valuable has the NIA/BSR investment in data been for stimulating research on aging issues? What are priorities for new investment, the cutting-edge research fields for which new investments in data collection, data linkages, and data archiving will have the biggest payoff?

These public comments will be shared with the Data Review Committee members, as well as NIA staff. If you prefer to keep your identity confidential, please prominently indicate this in your message, and your comment(s) will be forwarded without identifiers.

Background

The Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) Program currently has a research portfolio that includes $30-$40 million per year on data collection, with about 80 distinct data collection projects. The topics of these efforts cover many areas, including retirement, health and SES, disease risk factors, social determinants of disease and well-being, intervention studies, cognition, immigration and health, biodemography, and psycho-social pathways. There is also an international component to the portfolio, with funding provided to HRS-like studies (such as the Surveys of Health and Retirement in Europe), the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, the WHO Surveys of Global Aging, and others.

This review is in response to a recommendation of a committee of the National Advisory Council on Aging, which noted in its May 2004 report:

“The current state of the BSR’s investment in data collection as one of its principal infrastructure investments has come a long way since 1987 when a report singled out the lack on data in aging as one of the principal constraints on the development of the science…. This represents one of the stellar achievements of BSR over the last decade. The issues now appear to be very different than they were at the end of the 1980s. A partial list of those issues might be: (1) Is there unnecessary overlap in these investments? (2) Are the data being placed in the public domain in a timely fashion? … (3) Are there major gaps still to be filled and if so, what is the best way to remedy the situation?”