COMMENTARY: INTERDISCIPLINARY LONGITUDINAL STUDIES OF AGEING

  • K. WARNER SCHAIE
Chapter

Abstract

If one is interested in exploring the antecedent variables that differentiate groups of individuals with different demographic characteristics such as age, gender, or region of residence, one needs to look for data sets that have followed such groups over time. Hence, multi-disciplinary studies are increasingly common and two prime examples the ILSE and KAROLA studies are described in this volume (Rothenbacher, Rott, Jopp, & Brenner; Schmitt, Oswald, Jopp, Wahl, & Brenner). Before commenting on these studies, I will raise some issues common to interdisciplinary studies in general, and show a conceptual framework from my own Seattle Longitudinal study to illustrate how any major longitudinal study investigating aging processes is likely to become interdisciplinary whether it started in that manner or not. I then comment on some design issues relevant to both ILSE and KAROLA. Finally, I comment briefly on the power of interdisciplinary longitudinal studies of aging.

Keywords

Cognitive Functioning Structural Equation Modelling ApoE Status Primary Mental Ability Early Environmental Factor 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer 2006

Authors and Affiliations

  • K. WARNER SCHAIE
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of Human Development and Family Studies and Gerontology CenterThe Pennsylvania State UniversityUniversity ParkUSA

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