Men, Women and Ageing: Predictors of Ageing Well
In the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health and the Perth Health in Men Study
Maintaining health and independent living are high priorities for Australia’s rapidly-expanding older population. This project capitalizes on two existing large-scale studies, to increase our scientific understanding of strategies for maintaining the health and well-being of older people living in the community.
Two separate longitudinal research projects, the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) involving over 12,000 older women selected from every part of Australia, and the Health in Men Study (HIMS) involving over 12,000 older men from Perth, Western Australia, have been following older Australians in order to determine what contributes to older people’s health and quality of life.
The two research teams have designed the projects to be compatible, with identical survey questions and overlapping research designs. The Women’s study is larger and has national coverage, while the Men’s study includes more direct physical measures and a wider age range. This project is combining data from these two studies and is managed across two sites, one at the University of Queensland and the other at the University of Western Australia. The overall objective of the project is to explore successful ageing in men and women and to investigate potentially modifiable factors that may contribute to ageing well. This will inform the development of policy and interventions specifically targeting well being in old age.
The multi-disciplinary team of investigators is led by Professor Annette Dobson (UQ) and includes Professor Konrad Jamrozik (Adelaide), Professor Paul Norman (UWA), Professor Leon Flicker (UWA), Professor Osvaldo Almeida (UWA), Professor Wendy Brown (UQ), Professor Graeme Hankey (UWA), Professor Julie Byles (Newcastle), Associate Professor Nancy Pachana (UQ) and Associate Professor Jon Adams (UQ).
A policy advisory group has been formed to ensure that the research program of the study is relevant to the needs of State and Federal Governments. The Policy Advisory Group members all have extensive expertise in ageing and are drawn from State and Federal Government Departments and a national consumer organisation (National Seniors). This group meets regularly both by teleconference and at annual face to face meetings.
Four research fellows have been appointed, two each in Queensland and Western Australia, as well as a postgraduate student at UQ.
An important component of this project is the establishment of linkages to state and federal health databases. Both ALSWH and HIMS have established linkages with key sets of data, such as the National Death Index. HIMS has established linkages to WA Department of Health data through the WA Data Linkage Unit and access to this database is currently being negotiated for the estimated 950 ALSWH women who reside in Western Australia. ALSWH has linkages to the Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) databases and linkage to these databases for the HIMS participants is under negotiation. Both HIMS and ALSWH are also currently negotiating for linkage to the Home and Community Care (HACC) Program National Minimum Data Set (MDS) Collection for Western Australia.
A further round of data collection is being planned in 2008 for HIMS and this will coincide with the fifth survey of the ALSWH participants. In addition, a sub-study of both the men and women is scheduled for October 2008 to gather additional data on cognitive status and psychological well-being in these older Australians.
Analyses of the pooled data which are currently underway are addressing a diverse range of topics including smoking, stroke, overall mortality, healthy weight, trauma and social networks among the men and women.
This project is funded by the NHMRC/ARC Ageing Well, Ageing Productively Research Program.
