As National Poll on Healthy Aging enters its third year, researchers leverage its data

Two years ago, IHPI released the first report of the National Poll on Healthy Aging -- a signature program for the institute.

Conducted by a core team of IHPI-affiliated faculty and staff, and supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine, the poll aims to inform the public, health care providers, policymakers and advocates on issues related to health, health care and health policy affecting Americans 50 years of age and older.

There are several noteworthy developments related to the poll:

• IHPI members have begun leveraging poll findings for academic publications, including two that happened to publish today.

  The pair of publications are a JAMA Ophthalmology article by Joshua Ehrlich, M.D., M.P.H. and colleagues from IHPI and the Kellogg Eye Center that uses data from the NPHA report on eye care, and a Health Affairs Blog post by Nauzley Abedini, M.D., and colleagues that cites data from the NPHA report on loneliness and social isolation.  Poll director Preeti Malani, M.D., is senior author on both pieces, and other IHPI members are co-authors.

  The first academic paper published in cooperation with the poll team focused on sleep aids, and was led by Donovan Maust, M.D., M.P.H. in conjunction with IHPI colleagues; it published earlier this year in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

  In early June, a poster at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting led by Renuka Tipirneni, M.D., M.Sc., used data from the poll on insurance-related topics. Poll data have also figured prominently in several other Health Affairs Blog posts as well as other research conference presentations and citations in works by other academic teams.
   

• Researchers across IHPI and beyond now have free access to data from the NPHA's first fielding, through an agreement with the ICPSR data repository based at the U-M Institute for Social Research. Additional data will be posted online on a regular basis. The poll's methods are described here.
   
• The 18 reports issued since the poll's launch have conveyed older adults' views and experiences on a wide range of issues in a timely fashion. The next report will launch July 1. Each report is also archived in U-M's Deep Blue system, which allows individual reports to receive a unique, citable "handle" similar to the DOI numbers given to academic papers. 
   
• A video overview of the poll is available, featuring the poll's two associate directors, Erica Solway, Ph.D., M.S.W., M.P.H. and Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.S., M.P.H. speaking at a Wolverine Caucus event in Lansing this spring. Poll director Malani presented the NPHA at the Alliance for Health Policy in fall 2018; a video is available.

Hundreds of people have signed up for email alerts about new poll reports, and anyone with an interest in issues affecting older adults can join the list.  

IHPI members and others are also invited to suggest topics for future polls, by emailing [email protected] .