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
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.
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