Health, Caregiving, Cognition, and Well-being Over the Life Course and Across Multiple Generations - Project Summary This application proposes to collect, process, and disseminate data in the 2025 and 2027 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), including a new supplement on caregiving and cognition in 2026, which will enhance information on cognitive precursors to and caregiving for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD). The PSID is a longitudinal survey of a nationally representative sample of U.S. families that was begun in 1968. A cornerstone of the nation’s social science research infrastructure, PSID has collected 43 waves of data over 56 years on original families and their descendants. Its long-term measures of economic and social wellbeing allow study of the dynamics of social and behavioral processes and how they interact with health over the life course. Its design of following children of sample members when they become economically independent supports study of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic circumstances and health. Nearly 7,400 publications over its 50-plus year history attest to the PSID’s broad scientific reach. This project will collect, process, and distribute data on health, wealth, and time use for more than 11,000 families in PSID’s 2025 and 2027 waves, collect saliva samples to support multi-generational genomic analysis, and expand multi- generational data on caregiving and cognitive precursors to ADRD. Specifically, the project will: 1. Collect health, wealth and time use data in the core PSID 2025 and 2027 waves, including new items to identify unpaid caregivers, whether care is provided for ADRD, and to whom care is provided. 2. Collect and store saliva samples from adults in PSID 2025 to obtain DNA from three generations of the same families. 3. Collect a web supplement for both reference persons and spouse/partners in 2026 on caregiving and cognition, to include: measures of everyday cognition (quantitative and verbal reasoning; financial and health literacy); family rosters; intergenerational transfers of time and money across parents and children; and caregiving expectations (expectations for receiving care and providing it). 4. Process and distribute core and supplemental files; create life course and family context files; update and expand the new PSID Social, Health, and Economic Longitudinal File (SHELF) and files on family relationships and complexity; make paradata publicly available (including measures shown to be precursors to ADRD); and provide user support and training. After collection, survey data will be processed and distributed via PSID’s Online Data Center, which allows users to create customized extracts and codebooks. Sensitive data will be made available to qualified users under contract with the University of Michigan. Saliva samples will be stored for genotyping in the ISR Biospecimen Lab. Taken together, this project will expand the potential of PSID as a resource for examining health, wealth, time use, caregiving and ADRD over time and within and across families.
