Why was the cohort set up?
The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) was established to understand and
address the needs of an aging population.
1–3
Overall aims are to examine aging as a dynamic process; to investigate the inter-relationship
among intrinsic and extrinsic factors from mid-life to older age; and to capture the
transitions, trajectories and profiles of aging.
4
A central objective in creating the CLSA was to provide national infrastructure and
build capacity for state-of-the-art, interdisciplinary, population-based research
and evidence-based decision-making.
5
,
6
The CLSA was designed to be a national, longitudinal research platform that includes
participants from all 10 Canadian provinces, and collects comprehensive data and biological
samples that will support a wide variety of aging-related research questions.
3
The cohort of 51 338 participants, aged 45–85 years at enrolment, is composed of two
complementary cohorts that may be studied separately or together: (1) the Tracking
cohort of 21 241 participants randomly selected from within all 10 provinces who are
interviewed by telephone, and (2) the Comprehensive cohort of 30 097 participants
randomly selected from within 25–50 km of 11 data collection sites (DCSs) (in seven
provinces) who are interviewed in person, take part in in-depth physical assessments
at DCSs, and provide blood and urine samples. To support research that integrates
the two cohorts, a common set of questionnaire information is being collected for
both the Tracking and Comprehensive cohorts, and the same core data and data collection
are planned for each future follow-up for both cohorts. All participants will be followed-up
every 3 years after baseline until 2033 or until death. Recruitment and baseline data
collection were completed in 2015, and the first follow-up was completed in mid-2018.
Figure 1
4
shows an overview of the CLSA design.
Figure 1.
CLSA data collection timeline.
Who is in the cohort?
The CLSA cohort is a national stratified sample of 51 338 women and men aged 45–85 years
at the time of recruitment. The inclusion of study participants as young as 45 years
of age was motivated by the desire to capture mid-life experiences, since important
changes known to influence outcomes later in life occur during this period.
7
,
8
The lower age limit at the baseline also allowed inclusion of a sample from the baby
boom cohort (i.e. those born between 1946 and 1964) that will constitute a significant
percentage of older adults in the coming years.
9
,
10
The upper age limit was set to keep the focus on adults who have reached old age living
in the community. One of the interests in studying the oldest age group prospectively
is to examine transitions into the final years of life.
Participation in the CLSA cohort is voluntary and all individuals provided written
informed consent.
3
The selection and recruitment process is detailed elsewhere,
3
,
11
but in brief, a random sample of eligible households was contacted, and if an eligible
individual in the household was identified, they were asked to provide their information
to the CLSA in order to be contacted for recruitment. Those who responded by providing
their contact information were considered pre-recruits. These pre-recruits were then
contacted, and those who underwent all required baseline interviews and assessments
and provided written informed consent were enrolled into the cohort. The participation
rate into the CLSA was about 45% with an overall response rate of 10%.
In the Tracking cohort, participants were recruited across the 10 provinces, and all
questionnaire measures are collected by computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI)
administered through CLSA CATI sites established in four regions across Canada to
accommodate different time zones and language (English or French) requirements for
questionnaire administration.
In the Comprehensive cohort, recruits were drawn from individuals living within 25–50 km
(depending on the city and accessibility) of one of eleven purpose-built DCSs located
in seven provinces. DCSs are located in small, medium and large cities, and several
include large rural catchment areas. Comprehensive cohort participants provide data
through in-person home interview [computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI)], and
additional questionnaires, tests, physical measurements and biological specimens (blood
and urine) that are collected at the DCS. To participate in the Comprehensive cohort,
participants had to complete an in-home interview and the visit to the DCS at baseline.
However, the provision of the biological specimens or their health card number for
data linkage was optional.
Sample weights and eligibility of the CLSA sample
Three sampling frames were used for recruitment into the CLSA cohort: (1) recruitment
from a subset of participants in the Statistics Canada’s Canadian Community Health
Survey-Healthy Aging (CCHS-HA); (2) recruitment from the registries of provincial
health care systems; and (3) recruitment using Random Digit Dialing (RDD) of landline
telephones. Since people with less education and lower socio-economic status are often
under-represented in population-based studies,
12–14
efforts were made to oversample certain areas identified using census data to ensure
these groups are represented in the CLSA. Sampling weights were calculated for the
combined cohort, as well as for the Tracking and Comprehensive cohorts.
11
Since the CCHS-HA was a nationally representative sample of Canadians >45 years of
age with a response rate of >80%, it was used as the first sampling frame for the
selection of the CLSA cohort and therefore, the same eligibility criteria were applied
to all sampling frames to ensure consistency.
15
Similar to CCHS-HA, the CLSA excludes residents of the Canadian territories and some
remote regions, persons on Federal First Nations reserves and other provincial First
Nations settlements, full-time members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and institutionalized
persons (including long-term care). In addition to these exclusion criteria, participants
had to be able to complete the interviews in English or French and be physically and
cognitively able to participate on their own (e.g. able to hear, able to answer).
3
Participants who become institutionalized after baseline will continue to be followed
until study completion, death or loss to follow-up.
Sample size and power of the cohort
Given the diversity of goals for the research platform and the statistical models
used for these effects and estimates, as well as those of future (and as yet unknown)
research questions, it was difficult to provide globally meaningful effect sizes for
sample-size calculations. Consequently, one strategy used to determine CLSA sample
size was to carry out simulations based on projected evolutions of the cohort experience
over time, similar to a strategy used by the UK Biobank.
16
For these simulations, the prevalence of selected exposures and the incidence of selected
outcomes, such as particular chronic diseases, over the period of follow-up were used
as a guide to assess the adequacy of the proposed sample size. First, the expected
number of cases of an outcome was simulated for each 3-year wave of the CLSA based
on sex- and age-specific incidence rates and taking into account the aging of the
cohort over time. The simulations also accounted for mortality (based on age- and
sex-specific annual mortality rates from Statistics Canada) and attrition due to loss
to follow-up [estimated at 0.5% per year based on the attrition rates for the National
Population Health Survey (1994–95 to 2000–01)].
17
,
18
For example, for a condition with a high annual incidence rate, such as hypertension
(sex- and age-specific incidence rates ranging from 31 to 43 cases/1000 persons per
year
19
), we would expect almost 1516 cases from a cohort of 20 000 people and 2273 cases
from a cohort of 30 000 people (at the end of baseline data collection).
We also investigated the adequacy of the power profiles for two types of outcomes:
hazard ratios (for incidence studies) and odds ratios (for nested case-control studies)
using an iterative simulation-based approach. Because the Comprehensive cohort includes
physical measures and biological specimens that may be relevant to many analyses,
we wanted to examine the power using just this cohort as well as the full CLSA sample.
Simulations were undertaken to determine the minimum detectable hazard ratio (MDHR)
for the Comprehensive cohort (n = 30 000) and the minimal detectable odds ratio (MDOR)
for the combined cohort (n = 50 000). The results of these simulations demonstrate
the robustness of the CLSA data to power a wide variety of associations.
17
Generalizability
Selected weighted demographic and social characteristics of CLSA participants at baseline
were compared with those of the CCHS-HA and Statistics Canada Census 2011 (see Table 1).
These comparisons suggest that the weighted CLSA data are generalizable to the comparable
Canadian population on many key variables. As discussed above, the CCHS-HA (2008–09)
was an initial source of participants for the CLSA Tracking cohort, with a subset
of CCHS-HA participants (56%) agreeing to be contacted by the CLSA for possible recruitment.
18
,
20
Approximately 20% of CCHS-HA participants were also CLSA participants. We conducted
a sensitivity analysis by removing participants that overlapped between CCHS-HA and
CLSA, and the results, with and without overlap, were not significantly different
(data not shown). Therefore, we present only the comparison with the full CCHS-HA.
It is important to note that the results presented in Table 1 are based on sampling
inflation weights, and three distinct inflation sampling weights were used to calculate
descriptive results for the Tracking, Comprehensive and overall cohorts respectively.
Table 1.
Selected socio-demographic, lifestyle and health status characteristics of CLSA participants
(n, Tracking = 21 241, Comprehensive = 30 097, combined = 51 338) compared with CCHS
Healthy Aging (n = 20 087) and Canadian Census 2011 data
Weighted CLSA- Tracking %
Weighted CLSA- Comprehensive %
Weighted CLSA combined cohort %
Weighted CCHS –HA
a
%
Census 2011
b
%
Sex
Female
51.5
50.4
51.5
51.5
51.8
Age (years)
45–54
36.7
42.0
37.6
39.7
38.2
55–64
30.9
29.8
30.9
30.4
31.4
65–74
19.6
17.2
19.2
18.2
19.0
75–85
12.8
11.1
12.4
11.8
11.5
Marital Status
Married/living with a partner
73.3
75.9
74.7
73.8
70.6
Never married
8.2
8.4
7.9
7.0
8.6
Widow
7.5
5.5
7.2
8.4
8.0
Divorce/separated
11.0
10.2
10.2
10.8
12.8
Country of birth
Born in Canada
84.2
82.0
84.7
74.4
73.3
Language
English language spoken at home
73.5
68.7
73.2
66.4
66.0
French language spoken at home
24.3
28.2
24.6
23.5
22.8
Urban–rural
Urban-dwelling
76.6
90.8
75.5
75.9
78.6
Education
<Secondary
7.2
4.9
7.3
20.4
21.3
Secondary graduate
12.7
9.0
12.6
19.1
24.5
Some post-secondary
7.5
6.7
7.6
5.2
12.6
Post-secondary education
72.5
79.5
72.5
55.3
41.5
Working status
Not retired
51.0
57.0
51.6
56.4
NA
Retired
39.4
33.5
38.6
35.7
NA
Partially retired
9.6
9.6
9.8
7.9
NA
Household income
<$20 000
5.4
4.7
5.2
9.0
9.3
$20 000–$49 999
24.0
18.7
23.4
29.1
25.2
$50 000–$99 999
36.0
33.3
36.1
36.2
33.9
$100 000–150 000
19.1
22.2
19.4
16.2
17.6
≥$150 000
15.6
21.1
15.9
9.4
13.9
Self-rated general health
Excellent
20.7
20.4
20.0
20.5
NA
Very good
38.4
41.0
39.1
33.8
NA
Good
28.8
29.8
29.3
30.4
NA
Fair
9.5
7.5
9.1
11.5
NA
Poor
2.6
1.4
2.5
3.9
NA
Self-rated mental health
Excellent
32.0
28.1
30.3
37.6
NA
Very good
38.0
41.5
39.2
36.2
NA
Good
24.8
24.9
25.2
20.6
NA
Fair
4.5
4.8
4.6
4.9
NA
Poor
0.7
0.7
0.7
0.9
NA
Smoking status
Current smoker
10.6
9.1
10.6
19.2
Former smoker
58.2
57.5
58.0
48.3
NA
Never smoked
31.1
33.4
31.4
32.4
Alcohol consumption past year
Regular drinker
72.6
77.5
74.6
62.1
NA
Occasional drinker
14.3
11.4
14.1
17.0
No drink
11.1
11.1
11.3
20.9
a
A subset of the CCHS-HA participants allowed contact by the CLSA for possible recruitment
into the Tracking cohort. Therefore, a selection (approximately 20%) of CCHS-HA participants
are also participants of the CLSA. The sensitivity analysis was done by excluding
this 20% of participants from the CCHS-HA.
b
Canadian Census 2011 [in 2011, the National Household Survey (Long-form) of the Canadian
Census was done on a random sample of Canadians].
CLSA, Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.CCHS-HA, Canadian Community Health Survey-Healthy
Aging. NA, Not applicable.
Though generalizable to the Canadian population on many important variables, some
differences exist between the CLSA participants’ characteristics and CCHS-HA participants
(Table 1). The CLSA Comprehensive cohort, in particular, are more educated, have higher
household income, have higher percentages of participants who are Canadian born and
rate their general health as very good.
By design, the Comprehensive cohort was recruited from an area 25–50 km from a DCS
and included small urban areas with rural populations, medium size urban areas and
large cities respectively. The weighted data for the Comprehensive cohort alone, thus,
reflects only these regions and not the 10 provinces of Canada. Participation in the
Comprehensive cohort required a commitment to a significant amount of time and effort
to provide data. These factors, along with the voluntary nature of participation in
the CLSA, may have contributed to the differences between the Comprehensive cohort,
CCHS-HA and Census data. The Tracking Cohort, especially with its links to the CCHS-HA,
was more similar to the CCHS-HA and Census 2011.
Retention and accommodation strategies
In longitudinal studies, one of the main challenges is participant engagement and
retention.
12
,
21
Barriers to participant retention include: (1) participants moving from their enrollment
location; (2) participants developing health-related barriers; (3) participants experiencing
cognitive decline; (4) participants entering long-term care; and (5) participants
withdrawing due to study fatigue or associated reasons. In response to these barriers,
CLSA accommodation and participant retention strategies were developed.
Participant moves
Every attempt is made to continue to follow each participant over time as they change
geographic locations. For the Tracking cohort, this requires being able to continue
to administer questionnaires by phone. For the Comprehensive cohort, those who move
into an area covered by another DCS are re-assigned to the new DCS and undergo follow-up
as usual. If the participant has moved out of range of all eleven DCSs, then we complete
the data collection using a telephone-based survey (called the DCS by phone). Since
the placement of DCSs covers many of the Canadian urban population areas, we expected
to be able to re-assign many participants to a new DCS.
Participant develops health-related barriers
At the time of data collection, participants experiencing hearing impairment, speech/language
problems or vision loss are offered accommodations, as required, in the interview.
Procedures and processes have been developed to identify the appropriate accommodations,
such as involving a helper (e.g. allowing a spouse to be present during survey questions
if they can assist in enunciating or communicating for a participant with hearing
loss) or declining a test for specific measures (e.g. physical function measures when
a participant cannot safely stand). Under exceptional circumstances, modified interviews
have been developed to facilitate participation. A ‘DCS at home’ interview replaces
a DCS visit. This is meant to be used when a participant is physically unable to attend
a DCS location. This accommodation contains as much content from a regular DCS visit
as is possible. An ‘in-home by phone’ and ‘DCS by phone’ interview collects only the
questionnaire content via telephone interview. These interviews are meant to accommodate
participants where an in-home or DCS visit is not feasible. The proportion of participants
who required accommodations at follow-up was small.
Participant develops cognitive decline
One of the potential barriers to continued participation is decline in cognitive abilities.
Individuals at highest risk of cognitive decline are those ≥70 years of age, which
allows us to identify those participants who may need a proxy decision maker and/or
proxy information provider. Participants who were ≥70 years of age at baseline, and
participants who turn 70 at each subsequent wave, are asked to indicate how they would
like to participate in the CLSA in the future should they become unable to provide
their own responses. If they indicate that they would like to continue participating
in the CLSA, they are asked to provide consent for the CLSA to contact an identified
proxy to assist in providing responses should the need arise in the future. In such
cases, the contact information of a proxy decision maker and proxy information provider,
often the same person, is recorded.
Participant enters long-term care
When a CLSA participant moves into an institutional long-term care setting or nursing
home, we continue to attempt to follow them using the accommodation strategies for
moving, for health-related barriers or for cognitive decline, as appropriate. Participants
who enter into assisted-living facilities and supported senior’s housing continue
to be considered community living.
Participant withdraws
Due to the longitudinal design of the CLSA, great effort has been made to continually
engage participants in order to keep them motivated to continue in the study. Outreach
using various media, including direct mail, newsletters, surveys, maintaining contact
publications, social media posts and participant engagement events, are being managed
by the CLSA Communications team and executed in partnership with the CLSA Participant
Management Team, Local Site Principal Investigators and DCS staff members.
Retention rate and mortality rate
By the end of the first follow-up, 4.3% of participants had withdrawn from active
data collection; however 60.8% of those withdrawn consented to continue passive data
collection through data linkage. Participants who withdrew tended to be older, were
more often female, had lower levels of income and education and worse self-rated general
health. An additional 2.7% of participants died since their baseline assessment. This
includes 4.1% in the Tracking cohort and 1.8% in the Comprehensive cohort.
Decedent questionnaire
When possible, a decedent questionnaire is administered to a close relative or friend
after a participant dies. The CLSA decedent questionnaire is designed to elicit information
on the date and cause of death, the trajectory of functional decline, residential
transitions and health care utilization for the 3 months prior to death. Information
is also sought on the decedent questionnaire respondent’s perception of the quality
of dying and death of the deceased participant.
What has been measured?
The CLSA was designed, in collaboration with expert working groups, to help understand
the contributions of biological, clinical, health outcomes, healthcare services, lifestyle
and behaviour, psychological and social measures in adult development and aging.
3
,
4
Several multidisciplinary issues critical to the understanding of the aging process
were considered, focusing on questions that could only be answered with a longitudinal
design.
4
,
14
,
17
,
22
Feasibility and practicality were assessed when considering measures. This included
consideration of administration time, psychometric properties, relevance across age
groups, unique resources, or equipment required and availability of tools in English
and in French. All measures are referenced on the CLSA website (https://datapreview.clsa-elcv.ca/).
Table 2 summarizes the domains and measures collected in the CLSA.
Table 2.
Summary of measures in the CLSA Research Platform
Baseline
Follow-up 1
Measures collected by domaina
Tracking cohort (n = 21 241)
Comprehensive cohort (n = 30 097)
Tracking cohort
Comprehensive cohort
Social and demographic measures
Socio-demographic characteristics
x
x
x
x
Social networks and social support availability
x
x
x
x
Social participation
x
x
x
x
Social cohesion
x
x
Online social networking
x
x
x
x
Informal/formal care giving and care receiving
x
x
x
x
Transitions in work and retirement
x
x
x
x
Work limitations
x
x
Social inequality
x
x
x
x
Wealth/income
x
x
x
x
Home ownership
x
x
x
x
Built environments
x
x
x
x
Migration, mobility, transportation
x
x
x
x
Life space assessment
No
x
No
x
Education
x
x
x
x
Ethnicity, language, religion
x
x
x
x
Family and living arrangements
x
x
x
x
Paid and unpaid work
x
x
x
x
Veteran identifier
x
x
No
No
Gender identity
No
No
x
x
Health status
Activities of daily living
x
x
x
x
Instrumental activities of daily living
x
x
x
x
Pain
x
x
x
x
Sleep
No
x
No
x
Women’s health
x
x
x
x
Medications
x
x
x
x
Self-reported function
x
No
x
x
General health/healthy aging
x
x
x
x
Chronic conditions
x
x
x
x
Chronic disease symptoms
No
x
No
x
Injuries
x
x
x
x
Oral health
x
x
x
x
Self-reported height and weight
x
NA
x
NA
Self-reported vision and hearing
x
x
x
x
Falls
x
x
x
x
Falls related to consumer products
x
x
No
No
Physical measures
Weight and height
No
x
No
x
Hip and waist circumference
No
x
No
x
Pulse rate and blood pressure
No
x
No
x
Electrocardiogram
No
x
No
x
Lung function
No
x
No
x
Bone density (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry)
No
x
No
x
Body composition (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry)
No
x
No
x
Carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT)
No
x
No
x
Hearing
No
x
No
x
Timed 4-metre walk
No
x
No
x
Timed get up and go (TUG)
No
x
No
x
Standing balance
No
x
No
x
Chair rise: balance and coordination
No
x
No
x
Visual acuity
No
x
No
x
Tonometry
No
x
No
x
Retinal scan
No
x
No
x
Grip strength
No
x
No
x
Biological specimens
Blood
No
x
No
x
Urine
No
x
No
x
Cognition
Executive function
x
x
x
x
Memory
x
x
x
x
Reaction time
No
x
No
x
Prospective memory
No
x
No
x
Subjective cognitive decline/meta memory
No
No
x
x
Psychological function
Depression
x
x
x
x
Satisfaction with life
x
x
x
x
Personality traits
No
x
No
x
Posttraumatic stress
x
x
No
No
Psychological distress
No
x
No
x
Loneliness
No
No
x
x
Abuse and maltreatment
x
x
Childhood maltreatment and health across the lifespan
No
No
x
x
Elder abuse
No
No
x
x
Lifestyle/behaviour
Alcohol use
x
x
x
x
Tobacco use
x
x
x
x
Diet questionnaire
No
x
No
x
Nutritional risk
x
x
x
x
Dietary supplement use
x
x
x
x
Physical activity
x
x
x
x
Health care use
Health/social service provider visits
x
x
x
x
Unmet health care needs
No
No
x
x
Preventive health services
No
No
x
x
Data linkage
x
x
x
x
Decedent questionnaire
No
No
x
x
a
For a detailed explanation of specific measures and the tools and instruments used,
please visit the CLSA website at www.clsa-elcv.ca
Source: Adapted from Raina P, Wolfson C, Kirkland S, Griffith L. The Canadian Longitudinal
Study on Aging (CLSA) Report on Health and Aging in Canada: Findings from Baseline
Data Collection 2010–2015. Available from: https://www.CLSA-ELCV.ca (1 August 2018,
date last accessed).
Questionnaires
There is a core set of questionnaire-based measures that are common across the Tracking
cohort and the Comprehensive cohort.
20
,
23
These measures cover an extensive set of domains including social and demographic
measures, health status and functioning measures, psychological measures, lifestyle
and behavioural measures and health care utilization. We use validated measures where
available in French or English or adopt established questionnaires from other national
surveys such as Statistics Canada’s Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS).
Cognition
A number of cognitive measures to address memory and executive function are administered
to all CLSA participants;
24
,
25
these include the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test – Trial 1 and five-minute delayed
recall, the Animal Fluency Test and the Mental Alternation Test. Cognitive measures
that are additionally administered to the Comprehensive cohort participants are, the
Controlled Oral Word Association Test, Victoria Stroop Test, Prospective Memory Test
and Choice Reaction Time.
Medications
Medication and prescription drug use are part of the questionnaires for all participants,
and information that is more detailed is collected from Comprehensive cohort participants,
including an in-person review of medications during the in-home visit and an in-depth
‘Disease Symptom Questionnaire’ during the DCS visit.
Physical measures
Physical assessments are conducted only for the Comprehensive cohort, as a part of
the DCS visit. They include anthropometric measures, as well as assessments for physical
function, vision and hearing. In addition, participants undergo an electrocardiogram,
spirometry lung-function testing, an assessment of carotid intima-media thickness
using ultrasound and a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan for hip, spine,
and whole body bone density and body composition (bone, lean tissue and fat tissue
mass) measurements. By design many of the physical measures deemed important for in-person
assessment, including vision, hearing and physical functioning, are also collected
via self-report in the questionnaires.
Biological specimens
Of the 30 097 participants in the baseline Comprehensive cohort, 27 170 (90.3%) and
28 783 (95.6%) provided blood and urine samples respectively. Approximately 60 mL
of non-fasting blood is collected into six tube types to produce ten fraction types
including serum, four types of plasma (citrate, platelet poor citrate, heparin and
ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA)), buffy coat, two types of peripheral blood
mononuclear cells (with and without cell preservative), and three types of whole blood
(acid citrate dextrose, EDTA) including dried blood spots (baseline only). Biospecimen
collection and processing takes place in the purpose-built laboratory at each DCS.
Blood samples are processed within 2 h of collection and up to 5 h for urine from
collection for a total of 42 0.5-mL aliquots. Biospecimens are temporarily stored
at −80°C before shipping weekly in cryoshippers to the CLSA Biorepository and Bioanalysis
Centre (BBC) for long-term storage in cryofreezers (−190°C). The core set of biomarkers
that have been analysed to date are described in Table 3.
Table 3.
List of biomarkers in the CLSA Research Platform
Category
N
Biomarkers
Hematologya
25 427
Erythrocytes
Mean corpuscular volume (MCV)
Granulocytes
Mean corpuscular hemoglobin) (MCH)
Hematocrit
Mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC)
Hemoglobin
Mean platelet volume (MPV)
Lymphocytes
Red cell distribution width (RDW)
Platelets
Chemistrya
27 012
Albumin
Alanine aminotransferase (ALT)
C-reactive protein (CRP)
Hemoglobin A1c (n = 26 916)
Creatinine
Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)
Cholesterol
25-Hydroxyvitamin Db
Ferritin
Troponinc
Free T4 (Thyroxine)
N-terminal pro b-type Natriuretic Peptide (NT ProBNP)c
Triglycerides
HDL (High-density lipoprotein)
Non-HDL
LDL (Low-density lipoprotein) eGFR (estimated glomerular filtration rate)
Epigeneticsa
1488
DNA methylation
DNA extracted from PBMCs
850K Infinium Methylation EPIC BeadChip (Ilumina)
Geneticsb,d
19 663
Genome-wide genotyping
DNA extracted from buffy coat (n = 26 855)
820K UK Biobank Axiom Array (Affymetrix)
a
Repeated at each wave of the study.
b
Baseline only.
c
New for follow-up.
d
All 26 855 will be completed by 2020. Source: Adapted from Raina P, Wolfson C, Kirkland
S, Griffith L. The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) Report on Health and
Aging in Canada: Findings from Baseline Data Collection 2010–2015. Available from:
https://www.CLSA-ELCV.ca (1 August 2018, date last accessed).
Data linkage
At the time of recruitment, participants were asked to provide their health insurance
number if they consented to linkage of their CLSA data to their records in existing
health care administrative databases. The purpose of these potential linkages is to
collect further information on medication use, health service utilization and hospital
and physician visits, as well as to ascertain deaths and causes of death. About 90%
of participants provided CLSA with their health insurance number.
Key findings of CLSA research
Table 1 provides an overview of socio-demographic, lifestyle and health status characteristics
of the CLSA participants at baseline. Of the combined cohort, 75% were married or
living with a partner, 39% are retired, and 10% partially retired, 12% self-report
fair or poor general health, 5% self-report fair or poor self-rated mental health,
11% are current smokers and 75% are regular drinkers. The CLSA Report on Health and
Aging in Canada, Findings from Baseline Data Collection 2010–2015, provides a detailed
description of the key finding of the CLSA.
4
The goal of the CLSA is to facilitate important and impactful research on health and
aging, and to direct health evidence and policy to improve the lives of aging Canadians.
3
Baseline data are currently available for researchers and partners through a formal
data access request. Data from the first follow-up was made available in Spring of
2019. Lay summaries of all ongoing projects are available on the CLSA website (available
at https://www.clsa-elcv.ca/). Numerous studies have already resulted in publications
in a variety of areas, and links to published works can be found on the CLSA website
(available at https://www.clsa-elcv.ca/).
What are the main strengths and weaknesses?
The size, depth and breadth of data in the CLSA enable the investigation of various
understudied and novel areas that are not currently addressed in ongoing or proposed
studies of aging in Canada or elsewhere.
3
The CLSA includes participants from age 45 at baseline, younger than those typically
included in aging studies. This affords the advantage of prospectively capturing middle
life-course experiences that may be associated with changes in health later in life.
At the other end of the age spectrum, the CLSA includes participants at baseline aged
≤85 years. One of the interests in studying the oldest age group prospectively is
to examine transitions into and in the final years of life.
The CLSA was designed as a platform to build capacity for research on the many interrelated
factors that affect healthy aging over the life course.
3
The longitudinal design of the CLSA enables the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary
study of health transitions and trajectories.
5
A primary goal of the CLSA is to support research into the identification and understanding
of the complex interplay of modifiable risk factors, which will lead to interventions
that improve people’s health as they age.
6
Although sampling may be random, it is acknowledged that due to self-selection cohort
studies tend to recruit healthier and wealthier participants. To be enrolled in the
CLSA, participants had to provide written consent. The participants were required
to complete French or English language interviews by telephone and Comprehensive cohort
participants were required to have an in-home visit and a DCS visit. This may have
resulted in a cohort that under-represents people with lower levels of literacy in
French or English (e.g. recent migrants), with health problems, such as hearing problems,
memory impairment and mobility issues.
4
This and the response rates at baseline (comparable with other large cohort studies
but still low) limit the representativeness of the CLSA; however, key CLSA measures
for the entire cohort are comparable with estimates generated from Canadian census
data and other nationally representative surveys like CCHS-HA with high response rates
(Table 1). Although our weighted prevalence estimates for chronic conditions are in
line with these nationally representative sources, caution is still warranted especially
when presenting prevalence estimates for subgroups (e.g. high income vs low income),
but exposure–disease and other complex relationships can be validly tested using CLSA
data.
12
,
16
Is the CLSA data available for use?
A fundamental principle of the CLSA is to make data and biospecimens available to
the research community while protecting the privacy and confidentiality of study participants.
This principle is specified in the CLSA Data and Biospecimen Access Policy and Guiding
Principles. To date, more than 133 applications to access the data have been approved
by the CLSA since 2016, more than 175 researchers and partners are using the CLSA
platform and more than 15 research papers have been published using CLSA data. Special
consideration is given to applications supporting the training of highly qualified
health researchers.
Currently, there are three deadlines each year for submission of applications to access
CLSA data. The applications are reviewed by the CLSA Data and Sample Access Committee.
The data access process is shown in Figure 2.
4
Data access information, including an overview of the Data Preview Portal, data release
timelines, the data application process and documents, application deadlines, the
data and biospecimen review process and data access FAQs are available on the CLSA
website at www.clsa-elcv.ca
26
Figure 2.
CLSA data access timeline.
Profile in a nutshell
The CLSA is one of the most comprehensive research platforms for aging research
The recruitment and baseline data collection on 51 338 men and women aged 45–85 occurred
between 2011 and 2015.
Continuous data collection occurs, producing a new wave of follow-up data every 3
years.
The CLSA collects information on the changing biological, medical, psychological,
social, lifestyle and economic aspects of people’s lives. These factors are being
studied to understand how, individually and in combination, they impact both the maintenance
of health and the development of disease and disability as people age.
Data collected includes survey information on social and demographic measures, health
status, cognition and psychological function on all participants, and physical measures
and imaging for over 30 000 of the participants as part of the Comprehensive cohort.
The data collection for the first follow-up wave was completed in February 2019 and
the second follow-up wave began in April 2018.
Information on the CLSA platform, and on how to access the data, is available on the
CLSA website at www.clsa-elcv.ca
Funding
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the primary funder of the CLSA.
The infrastructure that supports the CLSA was funded by the Canada Foundation for
Innovation (CFI), 7 provincial governments and 11 research institutions. Additional
funding for the baseline and first follow-up assessments was secured from the Public
Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term
Care and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.