Data Products of the Center for the Study of Aging

The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is a longitudinal household survey data set for the study of retirement and health among the elderly in the United States. It is extraordinarily rich and complex. With the goal of making the data more accessible to researchers, the RAND Center for the Study of Aging, with funding and support from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA), created the five data products:

• RAND HRS Data File (v.L) is a user-friendly file derived from all waves HRS. It contains cleaned and processed variables with consistent and intuitive naming conventions, model-based imputations, and spousal counterparts of most individual-level variables.
• RAND Enhanced Fat Files which contain most of the original HRS variables with household data merged to the respondent level. There is one file for each survey year. Currently, there are files for 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010.
• RAND Income and Wealth Imputation Files which contains the component and ownership variables that were used in RAND HRS income and wealth summary measures. There imputations are distributed as companion files to the RAND Enhanced Fat Files and are incorporated into the RAND HRS file.
• RAND Family Data Files are user-friendly files derived from HRS other person files. The files include the characteristics of all children of HRS respondents and spouses.
• RAND CAMS Data File (v.B) is a user-friendly version of Part B of the CAMS survey

For more information, questions, or comments please see Help Using Data Products or FAQ, or email us at RANDHRSHelp@rand.org.