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Cohort profile: Singapore’s nationally representative Retirement and Health Study with 5 waves over 10 years
Reuben Ng, Yi Wen Tan, Kelvin Bryan Tan
Epidemiol Health. 2022;44:e2022030.   Published online February 21, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4178/epih.e2022030
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  • 4 Web of Science
  • 4 Crossref
AbstractAbstract AbstractSummary PDF
Abstract
The Retirement and Health Study (RHS) is Singapore’s largest nationally representative cohort with over 15,000 participants (aged 45-85 years) followed across five timepoints in 10 years (2014-2024). Accounting for sample weights, the sample represents 1.2 million Singaporeans and permanent residents of a total population of 5.5 million. The RHS sought consent to link survey responses to relevant administrative data, enabling the cross-validation of self-reports with national databases. There are 10 sections in the RHS with over 400 questions, 50% of which are on respondents’ physical and mental health, healthcare utilization and insurance; the remaining 50% are about employment history, retirement adequacy, wealth, and household expenditure. The RHS was set up to provide microdata to compliment administrative data for whole-of-government policy making given that Singapore will reach super-aged status by 2026. Sample findings include a need for older adults to balance between immediate financial needs and investments regarding their pension funds. Also, 86% of older adults preferred to transit into partial retirement by reducing workloads. On the health front, existing studies utilising the RHS have revealed latent classes of disabilities, and that intentions to seek employment can mitigate disability developments. Another study reported that physical disability and social isolation was projected to increase, with ethnic disparities in social functioning. Overall, the RHS will be used for evidenced-informed policy agenda setting and evaluation across domains of health, finance, retirement adequacy, social and family development.
Summary
Key Message
The Retirement and Health Study (RHS) is Singapore’s largest nationally representative cohort with over 15,000 participants (aged 45-85 years) followed across five timepoints in 10 years (2014-2024). Sample findings include a need for older adults to balance between immediate financial needs and investments regarding their pension funds. Overall, the RHS will be used for evidenced-informed policy agenda setting and evaluation across domains of health, finance, retirement adequacy, social and family development.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by  
  • Not Too Old for TikTok: How Older Adults Are Reframing Aging
    Reuben Ng, Nicole Indran, Barbara J Bowers
    The Gerontologist.2022; 62(8): 1207.     CrossRef
  • A playbook for effective age advocacy on Twitter
    Reuben Ng, Nicole Indran, Luyao Liu
    Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.2022; 70(8): 2363.     CrossRef
  • Ageism on Twitter during the COVID‐19 pandemic
    Reuben Ng, Nicole Indran, Luyao Liu
    Journal of Social Issues.2022; 78(4): 842.     CrossRef
  • Media attention toward COVID-19 across 18 countries: The influence of cultural values and pandemic severity
    Reuben Ng, Yi Wen Tan, Miguel A. Andrade-Navarro
    PLOS ONE.2022; 17(12): e0271961.     CrossRef
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