Joint Announcement of the Emotional Well-being Network and Stress Measurement Network: Request for Proposals for Utilization of Large Scale Cohort Studies to Examine Health and Aging Trajectories
Two research networks funded by the National Institutes of Health are requesting proposals for projects that utilize large scale cohort studies to examine psychological predictors and correlates of health and aging. The Network for Emotional Well-being: Science, Practice, and Measurement, a collaborative project between UCSF, UC Berkeley, and Harvard, in partnership with the NIA-funded Stress Measurement Network, will support several projects via grant funding of up to $15,000 per project.
The goal of this RFA is to support projects that take advantage of the existing measures of psychosocial stress and/or of emotional well-being that are available in large scale cohort studies. Example studies include but are not limited to the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS), the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS), and Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI).
For projects considering emotional well-being, we are interested in studies that specifically focus on positive emotional well-being, broadly defined as a multidimensional composite that encompasses how an individual feels generally, in the moment, and about life overall (features can include the emotional quality of everyday experiences as well as judgments about life satisfaction, sense of meaning or purpose in life, and other related concepts). For projects that will use stress measures, the Stress Measurement Network has a website of relevant resources (www.stressmeasurement.org/), and applicants are particularly encouraged to examine the Network’s joint stress variable harmonization project conducted along with the Gateway to Global Aging Data Initiative (see www.stressmeasurement.org/hrs-harmonization-project).
Proposals should address one or more of these research questions:
A. What are the relationships among stress and/or emotional well-being measures that predict health over time (i.e. cognitive health, physical health, disability, and other aging-related outcomes)?
B. How do trajectories and experiences of stress and well-being differ across time when comparing various demographic groups (e.g. age, race, gender, geographic region, SES group)?
C. How do the circumstances in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, or societal systems or structural factors interact with individual-level stress experiences and/or emotional well-being in ways that influence health outcomes? We are interested in measures of systemic racism, for example.
Projects may utilize data from a single study or from two or more studies to compare patterns and findings cross-nationally. Within the proposals, applicants should provide specificity regarding which measures of stress and/or well-being they plan to use, and describe the principal investigator’s experience working with the proposed (or similar) dataset(s), and/or the mentorship or team that will be supporting the PI in this effort. Information on existing freely available large scale studies can be found through the Gateway to Global Aging Data (g2aging.org).
Application: Please include a single PDF with PI last name as the filename that includes:
1) Project title and narrative description (up to 5 pages, single-spaced, excluding references). This narrative should include specific aims (including hypotheses), background and significance, statistical approach, and a description of the research team.
2) Itemized budget and justification (1 page). The expected budgets are $5-7k. Larger budgets will be considered for projects utilizing more than one dataset or with the goal of writing up two or more studies for publication.
3) CV/Biosketch for all key study personnel.
Eligibility: Research scholar with an accredited University affiliation. We encourage early-stage investigators and under-represented minority scholars to apply. Postdocs and graduate students should send a letter of support from a faculty advisor. PIs on selected projects should be prepared to present initial analyses via videoconference in September 2022 to Network leadership, with projects completed by February 2023.
Date due: Accepting applications until November 5, 2021.
Award announcements: January 7, 2022.
Contact: Grant-specific questions can be directed to Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas at emotionalwellbeing@berkeley.edu. Scientific questions can be directed to Dr. Aric Prather (Aric.Prather@ucsf.edu) and/or Dr. Alexandra Crosswell (Alexandra.Crosswell@ucsf.edu).
Funding for these projects is provided by the National Institutes of Health (R24AG048024; U24AG072699)
Download the full Request for Application (RFA) below.
This announcement was also published by the Stress Measurement Network, a collaborator of the Emotional Wellbeing Network. See the announcement here.