Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 108AGING IN THE 21S T CENTURY 6 FOREWORD An aging population is a sign of success — success at increasing life expectancy and man- aging family size. It is also a challenge. The rapid growth of the older population means that the number of retirees will grow relative to the num- ber of workers even though people are working longer. It means that the burden of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias will grow even if the recent trends toward lower rates of the dis- ease continue. The demographic pressures of an aging population are being felt everywhere in the world. In the US, the timing of aging is driven by the Baby Boom generation which is now entering retirement in record numbers and will in twenty years similarly require record increases in nursing care. The need for high quality and reliable data on our aging population is more critical than ever. The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) was designed more than a quarter century ago to pro- vide data for research on aging as an individual experience as well as a population phenomenon. The study’s combination of longitudinal data on health, retirement, disability, resources, and family support offers unprecedented opportu- nities to analyze and gain insight into our aging selves. Elucidating the complex interplay of health and retirement, of biology and individual choice, is at the heart of HRS objectives. Broad multi-disciplinary measurement is essential to that mission. Because life changes, and we with it, a study of aging needs to be able to track change by longitudinal measurement. This book aims to illustrate how the multi-disciplinary and longitudinal data collected by the HRS address those needs. Reflecting this, the themes of the chapters are analytical and integrative rather than descriptive as was an earlier volume of HRS findings titled Growing Older in America. The other key feature of the HRS is the public sharing of data which enables vastly greater scientific discovery than would be possible with a narrow team of investigators. While this volume reviews a large swath of the research output using HRS research, it is only a fraction of what the scientific community has produced. We gratefully acknowledge financial support and scientific cooperation from the National Institute on Aging (NIA U010009740) and additional co-funding and scientific input from the Social Security Administration. Two indi- viduals loom large in the inception of the HRS. Richard Suzman was the Director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) at the NIA until his untimely death in 2015. Together with HRS’ first Director, F. Thomas Juster, he provided vision and leadership to create and build the study we have today. Many individuals and institutions contribute to the ongoing planning, design, development and administration of the study, especially a highly distinguished multidisciplinary team of co-inves- tigators at the University of Michigan and other institutions nationwide: Charles C. Brown, Eileen M. Crimmins, Jessica D. Faul, Michael D. Hurd, Sharon L. R. Kardia, Kenneth M. Langa, Helen G. Levy, John J. McArdle, Kathleen McGarry, Olivia S. Mitchell, Mary Beth Ofstedal, Jacqui Smith, Robert B. Wallace, and Robert J. Willis. Important oversight and direction are provid- ed by the HRS Data Monitoring Committee mem- bers: James Smith (RAND), Katherine Baicker (Harvard), David Bennett (Rush University Medical Center), Lisa Berkman (Harvard), Carol Brayne (University of Cambridge), Richard Burkhauser (Cornell), Steve Cole (UCLA), Kenneth Covinsky (UCSF), Mark Duggan (Stanford), Richard Kulka (Abt Assoc.), Margie E. Lachman (Brandeis), Nicole Maestas (Harvard), Terrie Moffitt (Duke), Brent W. Roberts (University of Illinois), and Teresa Seeman (UCLA). Amanda Sonnega wrote this book and man- aged all aspects of its production. We are grateful to Christianson Design for design work and to Leslie Banks, Stark Artisan, LLC for copyediting; to Ryan McCammon, Mohammed Kabeto, and Chichun Fang for data analysis help; and to Kelsey Zimmerman for assistance with a range of production tasks. For their careful review of various chapters, we thank Charlie Brown, Eileen Crimmins, Michael Hurd, Alan Gustman, Ken Langa, Olivia Mitchell, Jim Smith, John Haaga, and Vicky Cahan. Finally, and most importantly, we thank the over 30,000 Americans who have shared their lives with us to make our vision of a broadly nationally representative multidisciplinary lon- gitudinal study a reality. Our gratitude to them knows no bounds. David Weir Director Health and Retirement Study