Combining Longitudinal Data From Different Cohorts to Examine the Life-Course Trajectory.

ABSTRACT: Longitudinal data are necessary to reveal changes within an individual as he or she ages. However, rarely will a single cohort study capture data throughout a person's entire life span. Here we describe in detail the steps needed to develop life-course trajectories from cohort studies that cover different and overlapping periods of life. Such independent studies are probably from heterogenous populations, which raises several challenges, including: 1) data harmonization (deriving new harmonized variables from differently measured variables by identifying common elements across all studies); 2) systematically missing data (variables not measured are missing for all participants in a cohort); and 3) model selection with differing age ranges and measurement schedules. We illustrate how to ove

SUBMITTER: Hughes RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8634562 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature