Aging is a complicated biological process defined by a combination of species-specific phenotypes. Understating this complex system in humans requires collaboration across a wide range of scientists including molecular biologists, biochemists, biophysicists, biostatisticians, geneticists, demographers, and epidemiologists. Longitudinal data on humans is an essential tool for both discovery and hypothesis testing for validation. Several longitudinal studies of aging exist that have collected both social and biological data in humans that can be used to understand the human aging processes. This chapter aims to introduce aging biologists to these valuable resources and also explain some of the essential skills necessary to work with these large population-based datasets.
Keywords: Human subject research; Longitudinal data; Longitudinal statistics; R.