Jody Schimmel Hyde, PhD, is a Research Scientist in the Survey Research Center (SRC) of the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan (UM). She is a co-investigator and an associate director of the Health and Retirement Study. Dr. Schimmel Hyde’s research focuses on financial independence, employment, and public programs to support self-sufficiency and community living for people with disabilities and older adults. She is interested in survey measurement of disability, and the value of survey-administrative data linkages to understand participation in and outcomes for participants of income support programs. Prior to joining SRC, Dr. Schimmel Hyde was a Senior Fellow at Mathematica and the managing director of its Center for Studying Disability Policy. While at Mathematica, she was involved in research projects for federal agencies including the Social Security Administration, the Administration for Children and Families, the Administration for Community Living, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Housing insecurity is a pressing public health problem: U.S. rates are the fastest-growing among older adults, one-third of whom spend more than 30% or 50% of their income on housing. Housing insecurity – defined as limited access to and availability of affordable, stable, safe, and adequate housing and neighborhoods – is a risk factor for numerous adverse health outcomes including chronic conditions, disability, and mortality. Although federal housing assistance is associated with improved health outcomes, current programs support only about one-third of income-eligible, cost-burdened adults aged 50+ who need assistance. Moreover, the relationship between housing assistance, housing insecurity, and adults health and disability trajectories remains poorly understood.
One unexplored area is how housing assistance and multiple dimensions of housing insecurity experienced during emerging adulthood, a critical life course period, relate to midlife and older adult health and disability trajectories. While previous research has examined effects of housing assistance and housing insecurity on health, studies often use cross-sectional or convenience samples, focus on a single rather than combined effects of multiple housing insecurity dimensions, and rarely include income-eligible older adults who do and do not receive housing assistance. Examining how previous housing histories relate to health and disability later in life will enhance our understanding of when housing assistance and housing insecurity matter most, and inform future housing interventions.
This study leverages more than 50 years of nationally representative, prospectively-collected longitudinal life course data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine how midlife and older adult health and disability trajectories relate to housing assistance and housing insecurity experienced during emerging adulthood, a critical life course period. This project seeks to: (1) develop typologies of housing assistance and housing insecurity life course histories for midlife and older adults; (2) examine how trajectories of health and disability during midlife and older adulthood relate to previous histories of housing assistance and housing insecurity; and (3) assess the extent to which relationships between midlife and older adult health and disability trajectories and housing history typologies vary by neighborhood context.
Complementing this research, a detailed training plan will build on the applicants prior training in environmental psychology and architecture to include (1) aging, gerontology, and life course theory; (2) age-related disability, mobility, and physical function; (3) longitudinal survey data analysis skills, including latent variable modeling; and (4) external grant-writing skills. This integrated training will prepare the applicant for a successful independent research career focused on aging, housing, and neighborhoods.
Findings from this proposal will generate critical insights concerning how and when housing assistance and housing insecurity matter most for midlife and older adults health and disability, inform future housing interventions, and elevate older adults need for housing assistance.
The Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya, or LOSHAK, is a collaboration between the Department of Population Health at Aga Khan University (AKU) in Nairobi and the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR).
At the heart of LOSHAK are two complementary surveys, each designed to align with established international research networks. The first “Core” survey will target roughly 6,500 Kenyans aged 45 and older throughout the entire country. It will gather a range of health, social, and economic information. The survey will be deployed in more than a dozen languages, reflecting the country’s linguistic diversity. It is intended to harmonize with a global family of similar aging studies modeled after the U.S. Health and Retirement Survey.
Nested within the Core survey is a second study of about 2,300 individuals in the Coast Region of Kenya aged 65 and older, focused on identifying risk factors for cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, and related conditions. This cognitive survey follows the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP), connecting it, too, to an international network of comparable health studies.
Finally, the research team plans to incorporate environmental and physical activity data from wearable devices, as well as biomarker data from collected blood samples, checking for signs of inflammatory diseases and other chronic health conditions. The award will allow the team to establish a long-term survey cohort, laying the foundation for future studies to examine other dimensions of population aging.
All of the information gathered through LOSHAK will be publicly available to researchers for comparison alongside harmonized studies around the world, providing insights to academics, government officials, and policymakers across the African continent and beyond. Because chronic diseases, dementia, and caregiving pressures are nearly universal, the project’s impact is not necessarily confined to Kenya—or even sub-Saharan Africa—but could inform care anywhere, including in the United States.
Related:
NIH Grant in Kenya to Enhance Understanding of Aging in Africa
Africa aging, health and socioeconomics study garners $23 million NIH award
The Demography of Aging, Disability and Care program focuses on population aging, disability, and long-term care and related measurement and survey issues. The program provides leadership for several national studies of late-life disability and care. The program also supports the Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging (MiCDA), one of 15 centers funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to advance research on the demography of aging.
Major Projects
The National Health and Aging Trends Study and National Study of Caregiving
Website: nhats.org Bluesky: @nhats-nsoc.bsky.social
Conducted in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) fosters research to guide efforts to reduce disability, maximize health and independent functioning, and enhance quality of life at older ages. NHATS gathers information on a nationally representative sample of more than 8,000 Medicare beneficiaries ages 65 and older. The sample is refreshed periodically so that researchers may study national-level disability trends as well as individual trajectories. Annual, in-person interviews collect detailed information on the disablement process and its consequences through the end of life. Family and unpaid caregivers of NHATS participants are now interviewed annually in the supplemental National Study of Caregiving (NSOC). The most recent NIA award funds annual collection of NHATS and NSOC through 2028.
Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging (MiCDA)
Website: micda.isr.umich.edu Bluesky: @micda-umisr.bsky.social
Entering its third decade, MiCDA serves as a nexus at the University of Michigan for faculty with a shared interest in the demography of aging. Housed at the Institute for Social Research (ISR), 70 affiliates from ISR and schools across campus are actively engaged in research in two signature areas: the changing demography of late-life disability, dementia and family caregiving and the social environmental and biological underpinnings over the life course that shape later-life health and wellbeing. A third theme cross cuts the two substantive foci by advancing data infrastructure and methods to promote breakthroughs in the demography of aging. MiCDA’s programs and activities promote new research on the demography of aging by seeding an Emerging Scholars Mentored Pilot Program, leading external networks of scholars addressing pressing scientific and data-related questions, and making data that require secure handling available to approved researchers through a virtual data enclave.
Health, Wellbeing, and the Social Networks of Family Caregivers of People with Alzheimer’s Disease
This online U.S. panel study, conducted in collaboration with the RAND Corporation with funding from NIA, surveys family caregivers and their networks and ties. Common network typologies and their associations with a variety of measures of physical, mental, and social well-being are examined along with change in caregivers’ social networks and health over the caregiving cycle. This work will help identify the caregiver network characteristics that matter most for caregiver health and well-being outcomes.
Caregiving, Complex Family and Kinship Ties, and Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD)
This grant (NIA K99/R00) seeks to enhance measurement of family and kinship ties and caregiving norms and behaviors regarding care for older adults in order to better understand under what circumstances complex family and kinship ties become activated and how this process differs for individuals living with dementia. Survey modules have been designed for a RAND online panel, the Michigan Poll on Healthy Aging, and the Understanding America Study.
The Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK): A Population study of Health, Wellbeing, Economics, and AD/ADRD in Older Kenyan Adults
This grant (NIA R01), conducted in collaboration with Aga Khan University in Kenya will fund data collection for Wave 1 of the nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK-Core) and regionally representative LOSHAK Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) to characterize drivers of health and economic wellbeing in later life for older adults in Kenya. These studies will be harmonized with the HRS and HCAP global families of studies. The LOSHAK data will enable a detailed picture of population health and economic wellbeing, providing insights relevant to public policy, economic, and public health planning for academics, government officials, and policymakers in Kenya, across the African continent, and beyond.
Sensory Aging, Late-Life Wellbeing, and ADRD Research Infrastructure to Catalyze Practice and Policy
The goal of this research infrastructure development project (NIA R61/R33) is to substantially strengthen a small but successful collaborative, international network – the SENSE Network – to accelerate and translate innovative research in sensory aging. Objectives of the Network include: strengthening SENSE Network’s coordination of resources, data, and expertise; creating novel integrated and harmonized data resources; generating actionable scientific knowledge through pilot project awards; supporting and guiding research of early-stage investigators; and disseminating and translating new scientific knowledge in this field.
Dr. Laitner is Director of the University of Michigan Retirement and Disability Research Center. His research falls primarily in the area of economic theory, in particular, factors influencing long-run growth and the distribution of wealth. He also studies Social Security solvency issues and reform options.
The overarching aim of this study is to assess the immediate and longer-term effect of the COVID 19 pandemic on the use of long-term services and supports by high-need older adults living in the US and to understand how these impacts differ for those living with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD). We will draw on pre- and post-COVID-19 observations from two large, longitudinal, nationally representative surveys of older Americans, the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the National Health and Aging Study (NHATS) and their linkages to geographically-based contextual data and to Medicare claims. We will undertake three specific aims: (1) Evaluate the immediate impact of COVID-19 on a comprehensive set of long-term services and supports, comparing high-need older adults with and without ADRD; (2) Determine whether changes in care arrangements persist beyond the immediate shock of COVID-19 comparing high need older adults with and without ADRD; (3) Assess the consequences of immediate or persistent changes in long-term services and supports measured by unmet needs and claims-based preventable health care utilization for high need older adults with and without ADRD.
The goal of this project is to substantially strengthen a small but successful collaborative, international network the SENSE Network to accelerate and translate innovative research in sensory aging, Alzheimers Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) and late-life wellbeing. The principal investigators launched the SENSE Network in September 2020. Building on past successes, we propose to leverage this research infrastructure award to address critical fiscal and organizational barriers that have hindered effective development in the field of sensory aging research. Objectives include:
- strengthening and expanding the SENSE Networks coordination of resources, data, and expertise through an expanded Steering Committee and creation of Cores (Data Collection, Harmonization, and Integration Core; Research Development and Mentorship Core; and Dissemination and Translation Core);
- creating novel integrated and harmonized data resources;
- generating tangible and actionable scientific knowledge;
- supporting and guiding research of early-stage investigators (including with the lived experience); and
- disseminating and translating new scientific knowledge to inform clinical care, intervention design, and sensory health-related policy.
The purpose of this study is to examine the daily lives of Lewy Body Dementia (LBD) caregivers and the links between LBD symptoms and caregiver well-being throughout the day. We will generate a rich and novel dataset to examine caregiving for LBD core symptoms in addition to symptoms shared by other dementias.
Nearly one-third of older adults (age 65+) in the United States are aging alone. Those who experience social isolation are significantly more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). Virtual reality (VR) is gaining recognition as a means to promote cognitive health as well as a means to connect with our social network. There is a need to understand the capabilities of VR to address cognitive health through the pathway of social connection among older adult.
- Conduct a series of semi-structured interviews to understand the social convoys and primary uses of technology for older adults living alone and identify perceptions and needs related to VR, cognitive health, independent living.
- Conduct a series of feasibility and acceptability observational studies using VR headset technology on social, physical, and cognitive outcomes. To achieve this aim we will conduct a series of feasibility and acceptability of methods, protocol, and logistical issues related to social head-mounted VR use to mitigate social isolation and promote cognitive health.
- Post-test semi-structured interviews to promote co-creation of protocol and informational materials for the implementation of Social VR technology for older adults’ cognitive health.
The short-term impact of this research will be to collect feasibility and acceptability data to inform the submission of an NIH R21 to collect pilot data and eventually an NIH R01 to test the efficacy and effectiveness of a social VR-based intervention to promote cognitive health among older adults living alone. The long-term impact of this research will be to develop novel and innovative interventions to reduce the incidence of ADRD and promote independent living through VR enabled social interaction among older adults living alone.
Alzheimers Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD), set as a public health priority by the World Health Organization, is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S.; however, a dearth of ADRD research data that consider dynamics across racial/ethnic groups beyond minimum standard racial/ethnic categories is detrimental to understanding a comprehensive picture of the current state of ADRD and its future. Hybrid sampling (HybS) that combines address-based sampling and respondent driven sampling conducted through the push-to-Web method is an attractive and practical methodological option for yielding a probability sample for racial/ethnic minority data. This project aims 1) to establish an inclusive probability sample national survey panel of the general population of adults ages = 40 years old with an oversample of Asian Americans focusing on the granular subgroups of Chinese, Asian Indian, Filipino, Korean and Vietnamese, and of Latinx stratified by Afro-heritage using the push-to-Web HybS and 2) to study ADRD risks across racial/ethnic groups and the role of social networks on ADRD risks.