U01AG071448

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health): Wave VI Core Project - Project Summary

This project, developed in response to RFA-AG-21-008, describes core plans for data collection and dissemination of the sixth wave (Wave VI) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), when cohort members will be 39-48 years of age (mean 44).

Add Health is a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of over 20,000 adolescents who were in grades 7-12 during the 1994-95 school year and have been followed for five waves to date. Over 25 years, Add Health has collected rich demographic, social, familial, socioeconomic, behavioral, psychosocial, cognitive, and health survey data from participants and their parents; a vast array of contextual data from participants' schools, neighborhoods, and geographies of residence; administrative data linked to participants, including birth and death certificates; and in-home physical and biological data from participants, including anthropometric measures, genetic markers, blood-based assays, and medications. Ancillary studies have added more information, including epigenetic, gene expression, and microbiome data. Thus, Add Health is exceptionally unique because it has a rich, multi-level, longitudinal array of data for a large nationally representative cohort of Americans who are entering midlife.

Importantly, the overall health profile of the cohort as they make the transition to midlife is problematic across many dimensions. Moreover, health disparities by race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual minority status, and rural-urban residence in this cohort are wide and, in some cases, widening. As such, rich longitudinal, multi-level, and nationally representative data are urgently needed to best understand the life course determinants of health trajectories and health disparities of US adults as they enter midlife. Wave VI of Add Health will fill this critical need.

The overall goal of Wave VI of Add Health is to collect and disseminate the comprehensive data needed to best understand the social, economic, psychosocial, contextual, and biological determinants of health trajectories and disparities among this nationally representative cohort of Americans as they age into midlife. The project is focused around five aims:

1) Re-interviewing cohort members using predominantly web-based and in-person modes, with explicit attention to securing high response rates from racial/ethnic minority and low socioeconomic status participants;

2) Enriching study content in key domains that will elucidate mid- and later-life health trajectories and disparities;

3) Re-visiting cohort members who consent for an in-home health exam that includes venous blood collection and other important components of health;

4) Assaying biological specimens for important pre-disease and disease biomarkers; and

5) Cleaning, documenting, disseminating, archiving, promoting, and supporting Wave VI data for the scientific community.

This project has extraordinary potential to contribute to the science of aging, health, and health disparities for decades to come, as the Add Health cohort ages into the middle adult years and beyond. Successful carryout of this project will supply essential data for thousands of researchers working on these critical issues.

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill

TO ENCOURAGE BIOMEDICAL, SOCIAL, AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH AND RESEARCH TRAINING DIRECTED TOWARD GREATER UNDERSTANDING OF THE AGING PROCESS AND THE DISEASES, SPECIAL PROBLEMS, AND NEEDS OF PEOPLE AS THEY AGE. THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING HAS ESTABLISHED PROGRAMS TO PURSUE THESE GOALS. THE DIVISION OF AGING BIOLOGY EMPHASIZES UNDERSTANDING THE BASIC BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES OF AGING. THE DIVISION OF GERIATRICS AND CLINICAL GERONTOLOGY SUPPORTS RESEARCH TO IMPROVE THE ABILITIES OF HEALTH CARE PRACTITIONERS TO RESPOND TO THE DISEASES AND OTHER CLINICAL PROBLEMS OF OLDER PEOPLE. THE DIVISION OF BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL RESEARCH SUPPORTS RESEARCH THAT WILL LEAD TO GREATER UNDERSTANDING OF THE SOCIAL, CULTURAL, ECONOMIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT BOTH THE PROCESS OF GROWING OLD AND THE PLACE OF OLDER PEOPLE IN SOCIETY. THE DIVISION OF NEUROSCIENCE FOSTERS RESEARCH CONCERNED WITH THE AGE-RELATED CHANGES IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AS WELL AS THE RELATED SENSORY, PERCEPTUAL, AND COGNITIVE PROCESSES ASSOCIATED WITH AGING AND HAS A SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE. SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH (SBIR) PROGRAM: TO EXPAND AND IMPROVE THE SBIR PROGRAM, TO INCREASE PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIALIZATION OF INNOVATIONS DERIVED FROM FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, TO INCREASE SMALL BUSINESS PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, AND TO FOSTER AND ENCOURAGE PARTICIPATION OF SOCIALLY AND ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS AND WOMEN-OWNED SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS IN TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION. SMALL BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER (STTR) PROGRAM: TO STIMULATE AND FOSTER SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION THROUGH COOPERATIVE RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT CARRIED OUT BETWEEN SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS, TO FOSTER TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER BETWEEN SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS, TO INCREASE PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIALIZATION OF INNOVATIONS DERIVED FROM FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, AND TO FOSTER AND ENCOURAGE PARTICIPATION OF SOCIALLY AND ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS AND WOMEN-OWNED SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS IN TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION.

93.866 - Aging Research

National Institute on Aging (NIA) [HHS - NIH]

Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599 United States

Single Zip Code

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) Wave 6 (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) (RFA-AG-21-008)

Amendment Since initial award the total obligations have increased 18791% from $150,000 to $28,336,705.