This application is for competitive funding of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) for the period 2014 - 2020. ELSA started in 2002 as a sister study to the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), and recruited 12,100 men and women aged 50 and above who were representative of the older population of England. ELSA has been part-funded by NIA since it began, with half of the funding coming from a consortium of UK Government Departments. This renewal request is to fund three waves of data collection - waves 7 (2014/15), 8 (2016/17), and 9 (2018/19) - and associated analyses. The central objective is to provide the high quality data necessary for an exploration of the dynamic relationships between health and functioning, economic position, social participation, wellbeing, cognitive function and health as people plan for, move into and progress beyond retirement. ELSA is a multidisciplinary study, involving the collection of economic, epidemiological, health, social, psychological, physiological and genetic data. The phase of data collection planned in this application will greatly increase the potential for longitudinal analyses so as to examine causal process. The research agenda of this application is focused on the following broad issues that are important scientifically while also being relevant to policy: comparisons of trajectories of health and wellbeing in England, the USA, and other countries; the determinants of economic wellbeing in older age; the nature and timing of retirement and post-retirement labor market activity; the interaction between psychosocial, genetic, and biological determinants of health and mortality; cognitive functioning and its impact on decision making among older people; disability and the compression of morbidity; the implications of mild cognitive impairment for social, economic and subjective wellbeing; economic, social and health inequalities in an ageing population; social participation and social productivity at older ages; intergenerational relationships and generativity; and health care utilization and transitions to social care. The specific objectives of the new proposal are to: 1. Design the survey instruments for further waves data collection, building on the existing data from these respondents and maximizing comparability with HRS and other studies 2. Develop and incorporate new assessments of intergenerational transfers, generativity, mild cognitive impairment, hearing, patient preferences and health service use. 3. Interview approximately 9,840 respondents in wave 7, 10,118 in wave 8, and 9,650 in wave 9. 4. Collect biomedical and physical performance data from respondents at wave 8 through a nurse visit. 5. Provide ten waves of well-documented panel data to the scientific and policy research community. 6. Carry out analyses of ELSA data relevant to the core research themes

Public Health Relevance

The increased longevity of the population is one of the greatest achievements of the modern age, but brings with it issues of concern to public health. Longitudinal data from large samples of aging men and women help us understand the evolution of disability, illness and healthy aging. The multidisciplinary English Longitudinal Stud of Ageing collects information about the interrelationships between health and disability, economic position, social participation, cognitive function, wellbeing, biology and genetics that i relevant both to public policy and scientific investigations, and can be used to compare the dynamics of aging in the UK and USA.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AG017644-17
Application #
9113455
Study Section
Social Sciences and Population Studies B Study Section (SSPB)
Program Officer
Patmios, Georgeanne E
Project Start
2000-01-01
Project End
2020-05-31
Budget Start
2016-08-01
Budget End
2017-05-31
Support Year
17
Fiscal Year
2016
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University College London
Department
Type
DUNS #
225410919
City
London
State
Country
United Kingdom
Zip Code
WC1 6BT
Fancourt, Daisy; Steptoe, Andrew (2018) Community group membership and multidimensional subjective well-being in older age. J Epidemiol Community Health 72:376-382
Demakakos, Panayotes; Chrousos, Georgios P; Biddulph, Jane P (2018) Childhood experiences of parenting and cancer risk at older ages: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Int J Public Health 63:823-832
Zaninotto, Paola; Batty, G David; Allerhand, Michael et al. (2018) Cognitive function trajectories and their determinants in older people: 8 years of follow-up in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. J Epidemiol Community Health 72:685-694
Veronese, Nicola; Koyanagi, Ai; Solmi, Marco et al. (2018) Pain is not associated with cognitive decline in older adults: A four-year longitudinal study. Maturitas 115:92-96
Alexandre, Tiago da Silva; Scholes, Shaun; Ferreira Santos, Jair Licio et al. (2018) The combination of dynapenia and abdominal obesity as a risk factor for worse trajectories of IADL disability among older adults. Clin Nutr 37:2045-2053
Steptoe, Andrew; Jackson, Sarah E (2018) The Life Skills of Older Americans: Association with Economic, Psychological, Social, and Health Outcomes. Sci Rep 8:9669
Smith, Samuel G; Jackson, Sarah E; Kobayashi, Lindsay C et al. (2018) Social isolation, health literacy, and mortality risk: Findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Health Psychol 37:160-169
Fancourt, Daisy; Steptoe, Andrew (2018) Physical and Psychosocial Factors in the Prevention of Chronic Pain in Older Age. J Pain 19:1385-1391
Garfield, Victoria; Fatemifar, Ghazaleh; Dale, Caroline et al. (2018) Assessing potential shared genetic aetiology between body mass index and sleep duration in 142,209 individuals. Genet Epidemiol :
Lassale, Camille; Batty, G David; Steptoe, Andrew et al. (2018) Association of 10-year C-reactive protein trajectories with markers of healthy aging: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci :

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