The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is a long-running study that examines middle-aged and older adults in the US, producing data that is used both domestically and internationally. As a panel survey, HRS follows approximately 20,000 U.S. adults, some of whom have participated in the study for 30 years, through the retirement and aging process.

The Survey Methodology Program (SMP) was established within SRC in 1992 with the explicit aim of creating a multidisciplinary team to focus on research methodology.  Thus, the SMP draws upon a range of disciplines including social psychology, cognitive psychology, sociology, statistics, and computer science.