December 2025- Health and Retirement Study (HRS) Workshop

December 8-10, 2025 (M-W) 10:00am-3:00pm EST

The Health and Retirement Study (hrsonline.isr.umich.edu) Summer Workshop is intended to give participants an introduction to the study that will enable them to use the data for research. HRS is a large-scale longitudinal study with more than 20 years of data on the labor force participation and health transitions that individuals undergo toward the end of their work lives and in the years that follow. Disability Data in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is a 3-day online (Zoom) workshop intended to give participants an overview of the disability data resources in the HRS. Content lectures delivered by HRS co-investigators and content area experts will cover a range of topics including:

• The various ways that disability, disabling conditions, health, and functioning are measured in the HRS;
  • How measures of disability have changed as the survey has evolved;
  • How the HRS captures disability benefit receipt in the survey and through and linkage with data from the Social Security Administration;
  • How disability-related topics like employer accommodations, assistive technology and personal assistance are measured in the survey.

In addition to presentations on these topics, the workshop will feature labs focused on working with work disability measures in Section M and disability spell data in the RAND HRS. Students will have the opportunity to present research ideas and receive feedback from the workshop faculty and other students. The course is designed for those with experience using HRS data or for those who have taken the introductory HRS workshop. The data training portion assumes some familiarity with STATA.

Amanda Sonnega is a Research Scientist in the Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan (UM), where she directs communication, outreach, and education efforts for the Health and Retirement Study. She received her Ph.D. through the Department of Health, Behavior & Society at the Johns Hopkins University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship within the ISR program in Social Environment and Health. She has lectured in the UM School of Public Health, teaching Psychosocial Factors in Health-related Behavior. Her research focuses on life course trajectories of physical and mental health; institutional and personal factors associated with vulnerability and resilience in aging individuals; and work transitions and their broad effects on health and well-being.

The Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques provides rigorous and high quality graduate level training in all phases of survey research. The noncredit courses are open to all. The courses are live online via Zoom. Registration and payment are required. Course fees are based on the total number of hours assigned to each course, the hours are listed on the course description. The 2025 schedule lists additional courses. If you have any questions regarding the application process, please use the online contact form or email the Summer Institute at [email protected] .