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Aims & objective

To find out the known as well as some new factors which increase the risk of occurrence of stroke (half body paralysis, Lakwa) and of memory problem and other brain related problems.
To identify a group of apparently healthy people (50 years and above), carry out their health check up and follow them up over several years to detect any health problems (like heart attack, lakwa, memory problems) with increasing age.
To investigate the prevalence and incidence of and risk factors for stroke and cognitive decline in the elderly.

Updates about the health of the participants will be obtained from telephone follow-ups every six months and physical check-ups every three years. The study is expected to last for at least 10 years.

Last update – 02/02/2017

The first wave of the MIDUS study collected survey data from a total of 7,108 participants. The baseline sample was comprised of individuals from four subsamples:

a national RDD (random digit dialing) sample (n=3,487);
oversamples from five metropolitan areas in the U.S. (n=757)
siblings of individuals from the RDD sample (n=950); and (4) a national RDD sample of twin pairs (n=1,914).

All eligible participants were non-institutionalized, English-speaking adults in the coterminous United States, aged 25 to 74. Data from the above samples were collected primarily in 1995/96.

Last update – 03/02/2017

The PREVENT Research Programme has established a cohort of individuals to explore differences in the brain and cognitive function in healthy people in mid-life (aged 40-59). People are grouped into high, mid and low risk based on their family history and APOE status (a well-known risk gene for Alzheimer’s disease).

650 participants are assessed on biological indicators including markers in blood, saliva, urine and spinal fluid as well as direct imaging of the brain’s structure and function. Changes in all of these markers will be monitored at 2 years to work out if risks that predict these changes. One of the main aims of the study is to identify the earliest signs of changes in the brain whilst people are still in good health.

Last update – 13/12/2017

Based at the University of Bristol, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), also known as Children of the 90s, is a world-leading birth cohort study. Between April 1991 and December 1992 more than 14,000 pregnant women were recruited into the study and these women (some of whom had two pregnancies or multiple births during the recruitment period), the children arising from the pregnancy, and their partners have been followed up over two decades.

The cohort has been followed intensively with annual questionnaires for the mothers, fathers and the children from age 5. A 10% sample of children were seen 10 times between 4 and 61 months for clinic assessment. Annual clinic assessment of the whole cohort was conducted from the age of 7 to 13 and 15 to 17. Assessment at age 24/25 is currently planned.

Record linkage has been completed for Education, Hospital Episode Statistics, Clinical Practice Research Datalink and Death notification and cancer cases.

1 million biological samples are held including maternal blood and urine, umbilical cord blood, placentas, paternal blood and saliva and childrens blood, saliva and urine.

The study has been extended to include grandparents, siblings, and children of the children and recruitment is underway.

ALSPAC is part of CLOSER (Cohort & Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources) which aims to maximise the use, value and impact of the UK’s longitudinal studies.

Last update: 12/01/2017

The NSHD has informed UK health care, education and social policy for more than 70 years and is the oldest and longest running of the British birth cohort studies. Today, with study members in their seventies, the NSHD offers a unique opportunity to explore the long-term biological and social processes of ageing and how ageing is affected by factors acting across the whole of life. From an initial maternity survey of 13,687 of all births recorded in England, Scotland and Wales during one week of March, 1946, a socially stratified sample of 5,362 singleton babies born to married parents was selected for follow-up. This sample comprises the NSHD cohort and participants have been studied 24 times throughout their life.

During their childhood, the main aim of the NSHD was to investigate how the environment at home and at school affected physical and mental development and educational attainment. During adulthood, the main aim was to investigate how childhood health and development and lifetime social circumstances affected their adult health and function and how these change with age.

Now, as participants reach retirement, the research team is developing the NSHD into a life course study of ageing. Study members completed a postal questionnaire in 2014 and participated in a home visit in 2015/16, where data on health, lifestyle and life circumstances as well as obtaining repeat physical and cognitive measurements were collected. Over the past two years, a subset of 500 study members were invited to participate in a neuroimaging sub-study and over the next two years they will be recalled for a follow-up. This study will be conducted in collaboration with the Institute of Neurology, UCL.

NSHD is part of CLOSER (Cohort & Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources) which aims to maximise the use, value and impact of the UK’s longitudinal studies.
NSHD is part of the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK), a multi-million pound public-private partnership to accelerate progress in dementias research http://www.mrc.ac.uk/research/facilities/dementias-platform-uk

Last update: 19/12/2016

The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a multi-disciplinary research project following the lives of around 19,000 children born in the UK in 2000-01. It is the most recent of Britain’s world-renowned national longitudinal birth cohort studies. The study has been tracking the Millennium children through their early childhood years and plans to follow them into adulthood. It collects information on the childrens siblings and parents. MCS’s field of enquiry covers such diverse topics as parenting; childcare; school choice; child behaviour and cognitive development; child and parental health; parents employment and education; income and poverty; housing, neighbourhood and residential mobility; and social capital and ethnicity.

The children and families have been contacted 6 times since recruitment at ages nine months, 3, 5, 7, 11 & 14 years.

MCS is part of CLOSER (Cohort & Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources) which aims to maximise the use, value and impact of the UK’s longitudinal studies.

Last update: 16/01/2017

The primary objective of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) is to collect longitudinal multidisciplinary data from a representative sample of the English population aged 50 and older. It began in 2002 and recruited over 12,000 people.

The study collects both objective and subjective data relating to health and disability, biological markers of disease, economic circumstance, social participation, networks and well-being. ELSA aims to measure outcomes across a wide range of domains and to provide high-quality multidisciplinary data that can shed light on the causes and consequences of outcomes of interest.

There have been seven sweeps of data collection 2002-03, 2004-05, 2006-07, 2008-09, 2010-11, 2012-2013, 2014-2015 and an eighth sweep (2016-2017) is currently underway.

The survey data are designed to be used for the investigation of a broad set of topics relevant to understanding the ageing process. These include:

health trajectories, disability and healthy life expectancy;
the determinants of economic position in older age;
the links between economic position, physical health, cognition and mental health;
the nature and timing of retirement and post-retirement labour market activity;
household and family structure, social networks and social supports;
patterns, determinants and consequences of social, civic and cultural participation;
predictors of well-being.

ELSA is part of the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK), a multi-million pound public-private partnership to accelerate progress in dementias research.

Last update: 13/01/2017

CFAS II based in England and Wales started in 2008, and builds on the design and infrastructure of original CFAS. It has provided data on generational and geographical differences including people in institutions. It will also provide important base-line information on older people aged 65-84 in 2007-2008 who will reach the age of greatest frailty during the 2020s when the peak in the number of people aged 85 or over is expected and at a time when major therapeutic interventions for dementia could be expected to have an effect. Participants were followed up by interview throughout 2010-2011.

CFAS II is part of the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK), a multi-million pound public-private partnership to accelerate progress in dementias research http://www.mrc.ac.uk/research/facilities/dementias-platform-uk/

Last update: 13/01/2017

MRC CFAS study started in the late 1980s with the initial aim of investigating dementia and cognitive decline in a representative sample of more than 18,000 people aged over 65 years. To date there have been in the region of 48,000 interviews with participants in the study. The range of information collected has also allowed the study to investigate depression and physical disability in the older population and also look at healthy active life expectancy. Following baseline interviews, subsets of the cohort have been contacted for 1, 2, 6 and 8 year follow up and the whole sample were contacted for a 10 year follow up. There have also been in excess of 580 donations of participants brains after death.

CFAS is part of the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK), a multi-million pound public-private partnership to accelerate progress in dementias research http://www.mrc.ac.uk/research/facilities/dementias-platform-uk/

There is a sister study CFAS II which builds on the design and infrastructure of MRC CFAS. It has provided data on generational and geographical differences including people in institutions. CFAS I is the original three sites (Cambridge, Newcastle and Nottingham) from MRC CFAS which are used as a comparitor for CFAS II.

Last update: 13/01/2017

The Cambridge City over-75s Cohort Study (CC75C) is a long-term follow-up study of a representative population-based sample of older people which started in 1985 from a survey of over 2,600 men and women aged 75 and above. Through a series of interviews and assessments spanning almost three decades they have contributed to one of the largest and longest-running longitudinal observational studies of ageing into older old age.
The initial study targeted all men and women aged 75 or older who were registered within a selection of geographically and socially representative general practices in Cambridge, and achieved a 95% response rate in six of the seven practices. From this original survey of 2610 people, 2166 individuals form the baseline sample for the longitudinal cohort. This group has been followed up through ten surveys, with sub-groups assessed more often. Similarly high response rates amongst participants still alive in their late 80s or 90s, and even amongst centenarians, have built an extensive resource of quantitative and qualitative data contributed by a representative sample of very old people and their relatives.
The focus in later years shifted to quality of life issues of ‘older old’ people near the end of life for which we have been interviewing relatives or carers of surviving members of the cohort all aged 95 or more, as well as these study participants themselves.

Last update: 05/01//2017