
Request for Proposals | Cross-National Comparison of Psychological Stress: Utilizing Newly Available Data on Psychological Stress from Around the World
The National Institute on Aging-funded Stress Measurement Network, in collaboration with Gateway to Global Aging Data (see g2aging.org), produced by the Program on Global Aging, Health & Policy, University of Southern California, has recently completed the harmonization of psychosocial stress variables across nine longitudinal studies on aging from around the world.
These newly harmonized psychosocial stress measures allow researchers to compare and contrast relationships between stress constructs (e.g., exposures, responses, buffers) with health and aging outcomes, within and across different geographic and cultural contexts. The data are free to the public as part of the Health and Retirement Study family of studies and include data from the US, Europe, Korea, Japan, China, Mexico, and Costa Rica. The stress types that have been harmonized across each wave of these studies are stressful life events, traumatic events, chronic stress, childhood adversity, discrimination, loneliness, social isolation, relationship strain, work stress, and neighborhood safety.
To foster the utilization of this rich resource, the Stress Measurement Network will support five exemplar projects that examine cross-national relationships between stress and aging with mentorship from senior faculty, priority access to the harmonized data and the lead data programmer, statistical consulting, and a $2,500 honorarium.