SHARE Corona Surveys: study profile.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) was in a unique position to respond to the need for high quality survey data on people's changing living situations. Implemented as two telephone interviews in the summer of 2020 and 2021 in 27 European countries and Israel, the SHARE Corona Surveys present a great advantage by their integration into the longitudinal, multidisciplinary and ex-ante harmonised design of the SHARE study. This allows researchers to trace changes from the pre-pandemic period, through the different stages of the pandemic, and the post-pandemic situation.

Circulating apoE4 protein levels from dried blood spots predict cognitive function in a large population-based survey setting.

Introduction: The apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele carries risk for cognitive impairment, but whether the level of circulating apoE4 protein in carriers affects cognition is unclear, as is how health and lifestyle impact circulating apoE4 levels.

Methods: We assayed apoE4 protein levels in dried blood spots of 12,532 adults aged 50+. Regression analyses tested the likelihood of cognitive impairment between groups and within those with detected apoE4 protein.

Assessment of circulating apoE4 levels from dried blood spot samples in a large survey setting.

Introduction: The apolipoprotein E () ε4 allele is associated with high risk for Alzheimer's disease. It is unclear whether individual levels of the circulating apoE4 protein in ε4 carriers confer additional risk. Measuring apoE4 protein levels from dried blood spots (DBS) has the potential to provide information on genetic status as well as circulating levels and to include these measures in large survey settings.

Saving Regret and Procrastination.

In countries, where a substantial proportion of retirement income rests on savings, there is much concern that a sizeable fraction of the population reaches retirement with insufficient financial resources. We define saving regret as the wish in hindsight to have saved more earlier in life. We measured saving regret and possible determinants in a survey of U.

Effects of spot size on biomarker levels of field-collected dried blood spots: A new algorithm for exact dried blood spot size measurement.

Objectives: The quality of blood values analyzed from survey-collected dried blood spot (DBS) samples is affected by fieldwork conditions, particularly spot size. We offer an image-based algorithm that accurately measures the area of field-collected DBS and we investigate the impact of spot size on the analyzed blood marker values.

Methods: SHARE, a pan-European study, collected 24 000 DBS samples in 12 countries in its sixth wave.

Dried blood spot collection, sample quality, and fieldwork conditions: Structural validations for conversion into standard values.

Objectives: SHARE, a pan-European panel study in 27 European countries and Israel, has collected dried blood spot (DBS) samples from approximately 27 000 respondents in 13 countries. We aim to obtain factors to convert analyte values between DBS and venous blood samples (VBS) taking account of adverse fieldwork conditions such as small spot size, high temperature and humidity, short drying time and long shipment times.

Methods: We obtained VBS and DBS from a set of 20 donors in a laboratory setting, and treated the DBS in a systematic and controlled fashion simulating SHARE fieldwork conditions.

Early Determinants of Work Disability in an International Perspective.

This study explores the interrelated roles of health and welfare state policies in the decision to take up disability insurance (DI) benefits due to work disability (WD), defined as the (partial) inability to engage in gainful employment as a result of physical or mental illness. We exploit the large international variation of health, self-reported WD, and the uptake of DI benefits in the United States and Europe using a harmonized data set with life history information assembled from SHARE, ELSA, and HRS. We find that the mismatch between WD and DI benefit receipt varies greatly across countries.

Reliability, measurement error and minimum detectable change in mobility measures: a cohort study of community-dwelling adults aged 50 years and over in Ireland.

Objective: To estimate the effects of repeat assessments, rater and time of day on mobility measures and to estimate their variation between and within participants in a population-based sample of Irish adults aged ≥50 years.

Design: Test-retest study in a population representative sample.

Setting: Academic health assessment centre of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA).

Mothering alone: cross-national comparisons of later-life disability and health among women who were single mothers.

Background: Single motherhood is associated with poorer health, but whether this association varies between countries is not known. We examine associations between single motherhood and poor later-life health in the USA, England and 13 European countries.

Methods: Data came from 25 125 women aged 50+ who participated in the US Health and Retirement Study, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.

Labor-Force Participation, Policies & Practices in an Aging America: Adaptation Essential for a Healthy & Resilient Population.

Population aging in the United States poses challenges to societal institutions while simultaneously creating opportunities to build a more resilient, successful, and cohesive society. Work organization and labor-force participation are central to both the opportunities and challenges posed by our aging society. We argue that expectations about old age have not sufficiently adapted to the reality of aging today.

The Consortium on Health and Ageing: Network of Cohorts in Europe and the United States (CHANCES) project--design, population and data harmonization of a large-scale, international study.

There is a public health demand to prevent health conditions which lead to increased morbidity and mortality among the rapidly-increasing elderly population. Data for the incidence of such conditions exist in cohort studies worldwide, which, however, differ in various aspects. The Consortium on Health and Ageing: Network of Cohorts in Europe and the United States (CHANCES) project aims at harmonizing data from existing major longitudinal studies for the elderly whilst focussing on cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, cancer, fractures and cognitive impairment in order to estimate their prevalence, incidence and cause-specific mortality, and identify lifestyle, socioeconomic, and genetic determinants and biomarkers for the incidence of and mortality from these conditions.

Data Resource Profile: the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).

SHARE is a unique panel database of micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks covering most of the European Union and Israel. To date, SHARE has collected three panel waves (2004, 2006, 2010) of current living circumstances and retrospective life histories (2008, SHARELIFE); 6 additional waves are planned until 2024. The more than 150 000 interviews give a broad picture of life after the age of 50 years, measuring physical and mental health, economic and non-economic activities, income and wealth, transfers of time and money within and outside the family as well as life satisfaction and well-being.

SHARELIFE-One century of life histories in Europe.

Welfare state interventions shape our life courses in almost all of their multiply linked domains. In this introduction, we sketch how cross-nationally comparative retrospective data can be fruitfully employed to better understand these links and the long-run effects of the welfare state at the same time. We briefly introduce SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, and SHARELIFE, which collected 30,000 life histories of SHARE respondents from 14 European countries, providing a unique data infrastructure for interdisciplinary research on the various influences of contextual structures on the lives of Europeans during the last century until today.

The Role of Institutions and Health in European Patterns of Work and Retirement.

This paper uses the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to investigate the role of pension and social security institutions in shaping the European patterns of work and retirement. The key novelty of our paper is a careful account of the health status of the respondents. We provide new evidence on the extent of health-adjusted "unused capacity" in the labour force, on the institutional determinants of the pathways to retirement, and on the relationship between actual health status and disability-benefit recipiency.

Quality of work, well-being, and intended early retirement of older employees: baseline results from the SHARE Study.

Background: Given the challenge of a high proportion of older employees who retire early from work we analyse associations of indicators of a poor psychosocial quality of work with intended premature departure from work in a large sample of older male and female employees in 10 European countries.

Methods: Baseline data from the 'Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe' (SHARE) were obtained from 3523 men and 3318 women in 10 European countries. Data on intended early retirement, four measures of well-being (self-rated health, depressive symptoms, general symptom load, and quality of life), and quality of work (effort-reward imbalance; low control at work) were obtained from structured interviews and questionnaires.

A new comprehensive and international view on ageing: introducing the 'Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe'.

This paper introduces the 'Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe' (SHARE) to researchers on ageing. SHARE provides an infrastructure to help researchers better understand the individual and population ageing process: where we are, where we are heading to, and how we can influence the quality of life as we age, both as individuals and as societies. The baseline wave in 2004 provides data on the life circumstances of some 27,000 persons aged 50 and over in 11 European countries, ranging from Scandinavia across Western and Central Europe to the Mediterranean.