Dear list members,

Center for Social Research and Data Archives, Institute of Social Science at University of Tokyo, welcomes you to a public seminar by James W. McNally, Director, NACDA Program on Aging at ICPSR, University of Michigan, on

An Introduction to Research Data on the Aging
Lifecourse: Web-based Data Resource and Tools to Assist the Research Process and Classroom Instruction.

Tuesday, April 2 from 14:50 to 16:30 pm at Akamon Sogo Kenkyuto Room 549, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Hongo Campus.

ABSTRACT

This seminar will introduce the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA), the gerontological program within the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan in the United States. NACDA's mission is to advance research on aging by helping researchers to profit from the under-exploited potential of a broad range of datasets. NACDA acquires and preserves data relevant to gerontological research and disseminates them to researchers to better understand the aging lifecourse. By preserving and making available almost
1,600 data sets on aging and health, NACDA offers opportunities for secondary analysis on major issues of scientific and policy relevance.

The seminar will discuss data collections within NACDA, as well as the research tools and support services we provide to facilitate the research process.
NACDA has been collecting and sharing research data on the elderly and aging for over 30 years. We seek to improve our understanding of not only the aging process but of how our elders interact with their families, their communities and the world around them.
Consequently, NACDA has a rich collection of studies on health, family support, community services and the emotional condition of elderly populations across the world. Because NACDA looks at aging from a variety of perspectives we work with closely with other researchers at ICPSR to increase our collections and to encourage cross-disciplinary research across a variety of topics. The seminar will develop the relationship that NACDA has with ICPSR, and how this relationship offers researchers access to a broad spectrum of secondary data collections.

ICPSR supports and distributes data on a number of research topics including mental health, criminal behavior, demography, drug abuse, child-care, medical services, political behavior and large collection of government data such as census file and vital statistics data. The seminar will show how NACDA works with ICPSR to improve our research program on aging. We will offer example on how these studies and support tools encourage multidisciplinary research and collaboration with other researchers at the University of Michigan and worldwide. As part of this discussion we will introduce some of the teaching tools that both NACDA and ICPSR have developed to assist in classroom instruction of aging and other important topics related to understanding the lifecourse. As members of the ICPSR Consortium, faculty and students at the University of Tokyo have full, unrestricted access to all of these services.
Finally, the seminar will discuss ways in which NACDA and ICPSR seek to encourage collaborations with international researchers. We hope the participants will be willing to provide input as to what services would be useful for their own research and teaching needs.

For more information, please visit our website:
http://ssjda.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/international/public-lec
tures/
or contact
Yukio Maeda (ymaeda[at]iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp)