Canadians are aging…fast! In just 15 years, nearly one in four people will be 65 or older.
Fortunately, almost 15 years ago, researchers anticipated this demographic shift, and with funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, a team set up one of the most ambitious studies of aging ever conducted in this country. The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) helps us better understand how we are aging, why we age differently and what we can do to age well.
In 2011, Dr. Parminder Raina (Lead Principal Investigator, McMaster University), Dr. Christina Wolfson (PI, McGill University), and Dr. Susan Kirkland (PI, Dalhousie University), along with researchers from across the country started collecting detailed data from more than 50,000 Canadians aged 45 to 85. They will continue to follow participants until 2031, conducting check-ins every three years.