Integrating the TILDA Health Assessments into the SHARE Policy Background

该项目的长期实质性目标是将复杂的客观健康测量与国际范围内的经济和社会数据相结合，以便更好地了解老年人的健康结果与经济和社会政策环境的关系。具体而言，该项目将探讨爱尔兰TILDA研究在大规模人口调查中衡量健康的方法创新是否以及如何有效地用于日益增多的国际可比老龄化调查，包括美国健康与退休研究（HRS）。爱尔兰TILDA研究利用高科技仪器和分析方法开发了一套创新的健康评估。与此同时，2007年，“分享”方案爱尔兰分支收集了一批数据，这些数据与“分享”方案其他19个国家的数据严格可比，目前正在收集同一样本中的生活史，涵盖从童年到现在的健康、就业、收入和家庭史。拟议项目的核心技术成果将是一种最先进的调查工具，有可能广泛适用于其他老龄化调查。这将通过五套综合活动来实现：将所有爱尔兰SHARE样本成员送往TILDA健康评估中心或应用TILDA开发的家庭健康评估程序; 2.探索哪一套便携式TILDA健康评估最适合在其他SHARE国家应用; 3.将从TILDA健康评估、生活史和第一波中获得的爱尔兰SHARE样本数据合并为前所未有的丰富数据集; 4.通过协调社会经济领域的两种调查工具，确保SHARE-爱尔兰和TILDA在未来的浪潮中更加紧密地协调一致; 5.探讨这种合并数据在分析2008/09年金融危机后按财务损失类型和程度分层的健康变化方面的有用性。该项目小组汇集了三个机构的经济学、调查方法和老年医学领域的一些公认专家。拟议的研究设计将提供重要的见解，方法和实质性的，为所有国家，包括美国和英国，关心了解人口老龄化的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-run substantive aim of this project is to combine sophisticated objective health measurements with economic and social data on an international scale in order to better understand how health outcomes in older ages are related to the economic and social policy environment. Specifically, the project will explore whether and how methodological innovations in measuring health in large-scale population surveys, which have been made by the Irish TILDA study, can be usefully employed by the growing set of internationally comparable aging surveys, including the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The Irish TILDA study has developed a set of innovative health assessments using hi-tech instruments and analytic methods. In parallel, the Irish branch of SHARE has collected one wave of data in 2007 that is strictly comparable to the other 19 SHARE countries and is currently in the process of collecting life histories in that same sample covering the health, employment, earnings and family history from childhood to today. The core technical outcome of the proposed project will be a state-of-the-art survey instrument with the potential of being widely applicable to other aging surveys. This will be achieved by five integrated sets of activities: 1. Sending all Irish SHARE sample members to the TILDA health assessment centers or applying the in-home health assessment procedures developed by TILDA; 2. Exploring which selected set of portable TILDA health assessments is most suitable for application in other SHARE countries; 3. Merging the Irish SHARE sample data obtained from the TILDA health assessments, the life- histories, and the first wave into an unprecedentedly rich dataset; 4. Ensuring much closer alignment in future waves of SHARE-Ireland and TILDA by harmonizing the two survey instruments in the socio-economic fields; 5. Exploring the usefulness of such merged data in an analysis of health changes stratified by type and extent of financial losses in the wake of the 2008/09 financial crisis. The project team brings together a number of recognized experts in the fields of economics, survey methods and geriatric medicine in three institutions. The proposed research design will provide important insights, both methodological and substantive, for all countries, including the US and UK, concerned with understanding the implications of population aging.