With an $11 million award from the National Institute on Aging, University of Michigan researchers will build and share national data that track how neighborhood conditions change over time, helping scientists study how local environments affect older adults’ health.

The National Neighborhood Data Archive, or NaNDA, housed at U-M’s Institute for Social Research, will expand its collection by about 30%. It links access to parks, healthy food stores, health care and other community resources with lower risks of hospitalization, chronic disease and disability among older adults.

The archive currently offers more than 250 free public datasets that users have downloaded 125,000 times and cited in more than 270 publications.Read the full press release.