Abstract
OBJECTIVE: We developed a MHAS (Mexican Health and Aging Study) and O*NET (Occupational Information Network) linkage to allow global researchers using MHAS data to assign lifetime occupation domains for older Mexicans. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three bilingual raters independently matched 440 records with 132 unique occupation codes from the 2012 MHAS. We used a modified Delphi technique to reach agreements. To assess reliability, we compared the distribution of observations between the MHAS file and the MHAS-O*NET linked file across five job categories (upper white collar, lower white collar, upper blue collar, low blue collar, and agriculture/fishing/forestry). The Institutional Review Board at the University of Texas Medical Branch reviewed and approved the research (IRB # 21-0268). RESULTS: Using the developed 1:1 MHAS-ONET linkage, consistency between MHAS and ONET was 97.4% across the five job categories. CONCLUSION: This MHAS-O*NET linkage will allow researchers to analyze the association between lifetime occupation and multiple dimensions of health, functionality, and retirement determinants for a low-middle income country with a large proportion of workers in the informal sector.