Life Course Events in Aging

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has been organizing and hosting one day workshops of its Cohort Studies Working Group each year in the spring since 2002. The workshops bring together roughly 15-20 scholars with a common interest in analyses of life course events in aging; in the role of cumulative exposures in aging-related outcomes; and in understanding how the economic, institutional, and demographic context has changed for different cohorts and for different racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic groups within cohorts. The Cohort Studies Working Group studies different cohorts - across birth years and across countries - to understand life course events in aging. By examining how life cycle events have affected the older age outcomes of these different cohorts, it will be possible to evaluate how life cycle events interact with the environment to affect older age outcomes. It will also be possible to identify whether there are certain biological and behavioral responses that are a normal part of the aging process and how malleable these responses are. Finally, examining past cohorts in developed countries can help elucidate the changes that may happen in developing countries. This application requests funds from NIA to build on the annual Cohort Studies meetings in two crucial ways. First, we propose to expand the workshop from one day to two. Second, grant funds would allow us to support the participation of a broader group of scholars than would be possible with NBER funds alone. This group would include scholars not affiliated with NBER but engaged in aging and life course research from a large number of research universities in the United States (including NIA-supported Centers on the Demography and Economics of Aging); researchers working on aging and the life course in different countries; scholars from research backgrounds other than economics (such as sociology, demography, epidemiology, clinical medicine, psychology, and geography); researchers at government agencies or non-university organizations; newer investigators developing or expanding their research agenda in aging and the life course; researchers with expertise in birth cohort or other long-term longitudinal studies in the U.S. and abroad; and researchers developing new methodological tools for the study of longitudinal data sets. This application would also enable the NBER to expand the content of the Cohort Studies program to include presentations on recent advances in statistical methodologies, in epidemiology and biology, and in clinical studies and reports on specific longitudinal datasets, including the availability of new longitudinal datasets and expansions to existing longitudinal datasets. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Understanding the role of life course events has implications for public health investments. The proposed annual meetings will influence research in this area by providing opportunities for interactions across different disciplines, enabling collaborative research, and by allowing researchers to learn from different disciplines, potentially influencing the way they work.