NPCRC Sponsored Conferences
Research in Advanced Dementia:
coming soon....
Health and Retirement Study to Advance Palliative Care
Health and Retirement Study to Advance Palliative Care Research
The NPCRC supported a one day conference entitled, “Leveraging the
Health and Retirement Study to Advance Palliative Care Research.” The
Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is uniquely positioned to address many
areas of palliative care research. Funded by NIA and collecting data
since 1992, HRS is an ongoing longitudinal study designed to be
representative of the U.S. population overage 50 years. HRS conducts
biennial waves of core interviews with approximately20,000 participants
and, following a participant’s death, conducts a post-death interview
with a knowledgeable proxy,usually a surviving spouse or family member.
Together,the core and post-death interviews include detailed survey data
including demographics, health and functional characteristics,
information on family and caregivers, and personal finances. The
longitudinal design also frequently captures the onset and trajectory of
serious illness. The HRS can be linked with Medicare claims data and
many other data sources, e.g., U.S. census, Dartmouth Atlas, etc. The
Medicare linkage, in particular, provides an exceptional opportunity to
pursue policy-relevant research questions that are central to the
expansion and improvement of palliative care in the U.S.
These data offer extraordinary opportunities for addressing many of
palliative care’s most pressing and challenging research questions.
However, the data are complex and conducting high quality research with
this data set requires both substantial knowledge of the HRS and
methodological skill. Researchers using the HRS for palliative care
research are interdisciplinary and encompass many diverse and
complimentary areas of expertise; yet they are geographically dispersed
and challenges exist to research collaborations that could otherwise be
synergistic.