Publications of the Project: Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II): Health and Cognitive Functioning across the Lifespan

Aircraft Noise in Berlin Affects Quality of Life Even Outside the Airport Grounds

Aircraft noise is a particularly problematic source of noise as many airports are located in or near major cities and, as a result, densely populated areas are affected. Data from the Berlin Aging Study II (Berliner Altersstudie II, BASE-II), whose socio-economic module is based on the longitudinal Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study which has been conducted since 1984, allows us to examine the effect ...

Response Error in a Web Survey and a Mailed Questionnaire: The Role of Cognitive Functioning

Web-based interviewing is gradually replacing traditional modes of data collection, in particular telephone and mailed surveys. This global trend takes place despite the fact that established knowledge of its consequences on response error is incomplete. This paper studies differences between a web (CAWI) and a mailed version (MAIL) of a questionnaire in various forms of response error, namely item ...

Using Personalized Feedback to Increase Data Quality and Respondents' Motivation in Web Surveys?

*****Volltextdokument auf Wunsch der Autoren gelöscht***** Web surveys technically allow providing feedback to respondents based on their previous responses. This personalized feedback may not only beused to target follow-up questions, it also allows test results to be returned immediately to respondents. This paper argues that the possibility of learning something about themselves increases respondents’ ...

Secular Changes in Late-Life Cognition and Well-Being: Towards a Long Bright Future with a Short Brisk Ending?

How socio-cultural contexts shape individual functioning is of prime interest for psychological inquiry. Secular increases favoring later-born cohorts in fluid intelligence measures are widely documented for young adults. In the current study, we quantify such trends in old age using data from highly comparable participants living in a narrowly defined geographical area and examine whether these trends ...

The Greener, the Happier? The Effects of Urban Green and Abandoned Areas on Residential Well-Being

This paper investigates the effects of urban green and abandoned areas on residential well-being in major German cities, using panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the time period between 2000 and 2012 and cross-section data from the European Urban Atlas (EUA) for the year 2006. Using a Geographical Information System (GIS), it calculates the distance to urban green and abandoned ...

Selectivity Processes in and Weights for the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II)

Like many medical studies, the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE·II) is based on a non·random "convenience sample" of self·recruited participants. To study processes of selectivity in BASE·II, we used an identical questionnaire to compare BASE·II with a large, representative reference study, the German Socio·Economic Panel (SOEP), thereby allowing differences in characteristics of participants in BASE·II ...

The Socio-Economic Module of the Berlin Aging Study II (SOEP-BASE): Description, Structure, and Questionnaire

The Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II) is a multidisciplinary study that allows for the investigation of how a multitude of health status factors as well as many other social and economic outcomes interplay. The sample consists of 1,600 participants aged 60 to 80, and 600 participants aged 20 to 35. The socio-economic part of BASE-II, the so called SOEP-BASE, is conducted by the SOEP Group at the DIW ...

Selectivity Processes in and Weights for the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II)

Location, Location, Location: The Role of Objective Neighborhood Characteristics for Perceptions of Control

Introduction: Control beliefs can protect against age-related declines in functioning. It is unclear whether neighborhood characteristics shape how much control people perceive over their life. This article studies associations of neighborhood characteristics with control beliefs of residents of a diverse metropolitan area (Berlin, Germany). Methods: We combine self-report data about perceptions of ...

Gender Score Development in the Berlin Aging Study II: A Retrospective Approach

In addition to biological sex, gender, defined as the sociocultural dimension of being a woman or a man, plays acentral role in health. However, there are so far few approaches to quantify gender in a retrospective manner inexisting study datasets. We therefore aimed to develop a methodology that can be retrospectively applied to assessgender in existing cohorts. We used baseline data from the Berlin ...