A new supplemental issue of The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences presents new measures, methods, and data collected during Round 4 (2021 to 2023) of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) - with a focus on cognition and how researchers adapted to working with participants as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
NSHAP is a longitudinal, representative study of health, well-being, and social factors among community-dwelling older adults. Its rounds of data are publicly available through the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging.
"Cognition is an important component of older adults' health and well-being and thus has been an integral part of the survey measures collected by the NSHAP," wrote Jennifer Hanis-Martin, PhD, and Terese Schwartzman, PhD, of NORC at the University of Chicago, in the issue's opening editorial.
The supplemental issue is comprised of articles that describe the shift from collecting data from respondents in person in their homes to collecting data via remote modes including web, phone, and paper-and-pencil, including a few cases that began in one mode and finished in another.
The issue also addresses the challenges faced in collecting data remotely on cognition and cognitive decline, including among different racial and ethnic groups, and Spanish-speaking older adults. The articles discuss the effects of different modes of data collection, COVID-19's impact on cognition due to changes in social connectedness, measuring cognition across race and ethnicity, and the risk factors for cognitive decline.
"The articles … provide insights and guidance for anyone interested in exploring the ways in which social relationships, health, and cognition interact with each other," Hanis-Martin and Schwartzman wrote.
This supplemental issue was supported by the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health (R01AG043538, R01AG048511), and NORC at the University of Chicago, which was responsible for the data collection. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health or NORC.
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