Harmonization of Cross-National Studies of Aging to the Health and Retirement Study User Guide Physical Functional Health

This User Guide provides basic information about the broad topic of physical functional health questions from the Harmonized Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and its sister harmonized surveys. These include: the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the Mexican Health & Aging Study (MHAS), the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), the Costa Rican Longevity and Health Aging Study (CRELES), the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA), the Japanese Study on Aging and Retirement (JSTAR), the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), and the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI). All of the surveys collected information on physical functional health, but varied in the spectrum and details of questions asked. We group the harmonized functional health measures into three categories: activities of daily living (ADLs), instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and other functional activities that are not in the purview of either ADLs or IADLs