Through the Kaleidoscope Viewing the Contributions of the Behavioral and Social Sciences to Health -- The Barbara and Jerome Grossman Symposium (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Investments in Longitudinal Surveys, Databases, Advanced Statistical Research, and Computational Technology
Investments in Longitudinal Surveys, Databases, Advanced Statistical Research, and Computational Technology
Pages 36-41
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From page 36... ...
i, · They measure key variables in multiple content domains and thus nvite multidisciplinary research. · The same variables are measured repeatedly across time, or retrospective histories are obtained.
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From page 37... ...
There is a specific emphasis on policies affecting retirement, health insurance, savings, and economic well-being." Some of its topics include health, disability and cognition, retirement plans, a variety of attitudes and preferences, family structure and transfers, employment status, job history and requirements, housing, income and net worth, health insurance, and pension plans. The Longitudinal Studies of Aging were two six-year panel studies the first in 1984, the second in 1994, with each followed biennially through four waves.
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From page 38... ...
Then the study went forward from there. But they followed these people all the way from childhood to middle childhood to maturity and beyond and they did that very well indeed." Another three very small studies tend to get grouped together, he said, because their data are often analyzed together: the Berkeley Growth Study, the Berkeley Guidance Study, and the Oakland Growth Study.
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From page 39... ...
PAST OR LOST ONES Two examples are the now-defunct Project Talent "a study of adolescents in 1960 that originally had some 400,000 high school kids enrolled, and quite possibly the worst longitudinal study ever conducted," Dr. Hauser said, and the National Longitudinal Studies, which focused "on labor market experience and are pretty much in the past." On the other hand, a historical reconstruction survey by the University of Chicago's Robert Fogel and collaborators based on records of men who were in the Union Army during the Civil War is "amazingly wonderful" an "important historical record that .
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From page 40... ...
,, STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES "The real strength of longitudinal studies," Hauser said, "is that they give you 'the big picture,' a true description of the life course in real populations." Moreover, he added, "they permit quantitative analysis of social, economic, psychological, and biological processes as they occur. Studies that are relational or multilevel in design e.g., including spouses, siblings, schools, employers, and localities can provide important findings about social interaction and environmental or contextual influences on the life course." A final advantage, he said, is that, "because of the large number of participants in such studies, it is sometimes possible to study what happens in rare or narrowly defined populations e.g., parents who have experienced the death or mental illness of a child." "Most of the studies that I have described to you are of short duration at least are stidofshort duration," Dr.
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From page 41... ...
"We need to have planning so that we are always getting new data. We are only beginning at the beginning of people's lives, and we will need to be able to reap the harvest regularly and not on the basis of occasional one-shot expenditures."
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