Family support and health across generations
Official title: Tracing the Health Consequences of Family Support
Funded at Syracuse University · NIH-11090481 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project links long-running U.S. family and health surveys to learn how family help and government programs affect the health of American adults and their relatives.
Quick facts
| Grant type | U01 cooperative agreement |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Syracuse University NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Syracuse, United States) |
| Project start | September 15, 2022 |
| Project end | May 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $443,212 |
| NIH project number | 5U01AG079065-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11090481 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Adults in the United States and their family members already represented in long-term surveys like the HRS and PSID (including older adults and their adult children) are the focus of this work.
✕Less likely to help
People not captured in these U.S.-based surveys — for example recent immigrants, non-U.S. residents, or young children — will not be directly included and may not see direct benefits from this analysis.
What this research studies
If your family gives or gets help (time, money, or shared housing), this project looks at how that help and government programs affect the health of adults and their relatives over time. The researchers will link decades of data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) into a new contextual database that follows families across generations. They will analyze patterns of private family transfers and public benefits alongside health measures to identify where supports match needs or fall short. The goal is to show which family situations lead to better or worse health and where policy changes could help.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: Could identify how family and public supports interact to protect or harm health, informing policies that better help vulnerable adults and families.
How similar studies have gone: Previous research using HRS and PSID has linked family support and public transfers to health outcomes, but combining multigenerational contextual data in this linked way is a newer approach.
Where this research is happening
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Syracuse University
Syracuse, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Wiemers, Emily — Syracuse University
- Study coordinator: Wiemers, Emily
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.