Harmonizing Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Specific aims of this application are (1) to harmonize the second wave of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) to allow comparative cross-national studies of aging, and (2) to analyze and disseminate the internationally harmonized baseline data to the international research community. KLoSA is a multidisciplinary, nationally representative panel survey on aging in Korea, funded by the Korean Ministry of Labor. The baseline survey instrument was modeled after Health and Retirement Study in the U.S. to enable cross-national studies of aging. In this application, we seek funding to disseminate the baseline data collected during 2006 to the international research community by preparing English documentation and data sets with the baseline report. We propose to facilitate data distribution by conducting a user-workshop, creating CD- Rom of public data, codebook, and the baseline report, and displaying public data, codebook, and documentation at international research conferences. We also seek funding to prepare an internationally harmonized survey instrument for the second wave of the study, including a longitudinal follow-up interview, an exit interview for the deceased, and a baseline interview of institutionalized elders. The tasks that we propose to perform for harmonization is to make systematic comparisons with other countries' aging survey instruments and to establish ex ante comparability. The proposed inputs are necessary for facilitating cross-national studies with other countries' aging data set, and without these inputs, the opportunity to develop comparable aging data will be lost. Population aging is occurring practically in all regions of the world. Many countries are now at the early stages of adapting policies to their changing population, and countries that started the aging process later typically go through a more rapid process. Particularly, Korea is at an early stage of policy development, as the country's policy has focused on economic development and only recently in 1990s, social policy has begun to be adopted. As different countries adopt different policies, natural experiments are in progress, offering unusual opportunities for scientists to examine the effects of various policies (National Research Council, 2001). Enabling such investigation, a number of countries have been induced to provide harmonized data that collect conceptually comparable information using synchronized sampling and quality control procedures. A good example of such harmonization efforts is HRS and its sister data sets, namely ELSA, and SHARE. Starting with Korea, other Asian countries including China, Japan, and Thailand, are also in the process of developing HRS-like aging surveys, and harmonizing the KLoSA survey instrument and disseminating the harmonized data sets to the international community will set a good example for other aging surveys in Asia. Scientific advances will reach beyond the border through the development of internationally harmonized data that is disseminated through the Internet with multilingual support, reaching the international community. The Behavioral and Social Research Branch of NIA emphasized "International Networks in Population Aging" as one of the key areas for R21 Exploratory/Development Grants, seeking to fund research that develops "methodologies and mechanisms that facilitate the harmonization-or the standardization-of data collected in both industrialized (see Preparing for an Aging World: The Case for Cross-National Research, National Research Council, 2001) and less developed countries" and "methods for calibrating health and well-being across populations" (http://www.nia.nih.gov/ResearchInformation/ExtramuralPrograms/ BehavioralAndSocialResearch/R21Grants.htm). Our project directly speaks to this initiative by developing international networks in population aging.