How to Use This Site

Who is The People Say for?

Legislators, policymakers, and their staff can use The People Say to understand the lived experience of their constituents and find compelling inspiration about key issues. Save videos and quotes, and read our insights for action briefs.

Federal, state, and local program leaders can use 
the database to learn about their service beneficiaries’ challenges and needs. Filter search results by specific programs, like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and veterans' benefits.

Researchers and advocates can hear older adults speak firsthand to their experiences and aspirations. Search the database for multimedia data, or read our distilled insights from research. 

People of all ages can use the platform to learn how to better support their aging loved ones and community members—and what to expect when growing older themselves.

How do you make an account?

This site is intended for public-interest use by legislators, policymakers, goverment program leaders, researchers, and advocates, but it can be used by everyone! While you can access much of the site without an account, an account is required to view and save individual data units. 

Users who register with an email address that ends in .edu, .gov, or .org will gain immediate access to the site upon verifying their email. Accounts that register with a .com or other domain will be granted access upon review by our research team. 

For technical assistance with your account, contact [email protected].

How does the database work?

Search by Keyword

You can search our qualitative database by keywords. If you search the term medical debt, it will show all data units that contain the word medical or debt or both medical and debt.

Search results are ranked by relevance—the more times a keyword is mentioned in a data unit, the higher it will appear on your search results. You can use the filters to further limit your search results. 

Select Your Topics

When the Search the Database page loads, all ~2,400 data units are visible. Select items from the menus on the left to narrow down the results. Click on any one of the main eight topics to expand and see all of the subtopics it contains. You can select/deselect all subtopics with the toggle button or select subtopics individually. When you select multiple topics or subtopics, you'll see results where any of the selected topics and subtopics are present.

The results are sorted by relevance, in descending order. The top results are data units that have the most matches with the topics you’ve selected. 

Our 108 topic and subtopic tags were developed with reference to the primary keywords or taxonomies used by five major longitudinal studies of American older adults, then revised with input from our advisory committee.

Specify Demographics

By default, the database loads without any demographic filters applied. Selecting specific demographic categories will limit results to all the demographic conditions selected.

Demographics were self-described by older adult participants, caregivers, and staff, then verified by researchers if unclear.

Demographic filters do not apply to subject-matter experts, so if demographic filters are applied, data from subject-matter experts will not be displayed. 

Specify Data Types

This database contains video and audio media, direct quotes, and transcript summaries from interviews with our research participants. Data units are tagged with the types of media or content they contains. A single data unit can include two or more data types, like a video and a direct quote, or a statement that includes both a direct quote and a summary. 

Videos and direct quotes are excerpted directly from the interview and edited to remove personally identifying information (PII). Transcript summaries represent contextual information and longer stories shared over the course of the entire interview. Roughly half of the nearly 2,400 data units contain video or audio media.

Can’t find what you’re looking for?

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, try changing your search terms or expanding your demographic categories to see more data units. 

This database contains data units from research with 88 participants. Specific intersections of demographics and experience may not be available in this initial sample of participants. Read more about our sample selection. 

Our research team is very knowledgeable about the dataset, so you can reach out to 📥 [email protected] for help finding specific topics or data. 

To discuss opportunities to develop new The People Say research for additional locations or other target populations, contact [email protected].

What can you do with a data unit?

Expand a Data Unit

Click on a data unit in the search results to expand it and see more information. Once on a data unit’s page, you will be able to watch full video and/or read a quote or summary from the transcript. You can also see the full set of topic and subtopic tags, which you can click to see the database filtered by that tag. Data-unit pages also contain the participant’s demographic information and link to their full profile, along with related research.

Save and Share Data

You can save data units to your account for easy access later. Click the save button on a data unit or data-unit page to save a data unit to your account. Manage your saved data by visiting the Account page.

Users are permitted to share specific data housed on the site and embed site data in documents, slide presentations, or other media not designed for ongoing display on the internet so long as you comply with our terms of use. 

Toggle Between Languages 

Roughly one-sixth of older adult interviews were conducted in Cantonese or Spanish. All video subtitles, direct quotes, and transcript summaries have been translated into English by native speakers on our research team. Data units available in more than one language have a toggle button that allows you to switch between the original language and translated version.

See Full Transcript

Note: Interview transcripts are AI-generated, lightly reviewed, and likely to include transcription errors. If you would like access to full-length video or audio of a given interview, please contact [email protected].