An introduction to ELSA

1
An introduction to ELSA

• Paola Zaninotto
• Department of Epidemiology and Public Health
• Email p.zaninotto_at_ucl.ac.uk

2
What is ELSA?

• Multidisciplinary study
• People aged 50 living in England
• Longitudinal 2-year intervals

3
Research Team

• Dept of Epidemiology and Public Health, UCL
• National Centre for Social Research, NatCen
• Institute for Fiscal Studies and UCL Dept of
  Economics
• Universities of Cambridge, East Anglia and
  Exeter, and Imperial College

4
Key Research Areas

• Health trajectories, disability and healthy life
  expectancy
• Two-way relationship between economic position
  and health
• Timing of retirement post retirement labour
  market activity
• Nature of social networks, support and
  participation
• Predictors of wellbeing

5
Modes of data collection

• INTERVIEWER VISIT
• CAPI
• Self-completion questionnaire
• Measurements timed walk
• NURSE VISIT (wave 2, wave 4)

6
The sample
HSE Nurse 2006
HSE Nurse 1998-1999-2001
ELSA Wave 1 (2002) Core Interview (11,392)
Wave 2 (2004) Core int (8,780) Nurse visit
(7,666)
Wave 3 (2006) Core int (8,811) Life History
(7,848)
Wave 4 (2008) Core interview and Nurse visit
7
Information collected during the interview
8
Demographics
Household demographicsHousehold
compositionChanges to household composition
Individual demographicsAge, sex, marital
status, etc..Siblings, children, grandchildren,
great-grandchildrenInformation about natural
parents
9
Physical health

• General health and longstanding illness
• CVD and other chronic diseases
• Hearing and eyesight
• Falls, hip and knee replacements,
• pain, balance
• Disabilities (ADL, IADL, mobility)
• Incontinence
• Smoking, drinking and physical activity
• Dental health, sleep disturbance and menopause

10
Mental health

• Self reported emotional problems
• Centre for Epidemiologic Study Depression Scale
  (CESD)

11
Cognitive Function

• Memory
• Self-rated, orientation, word list, prospective
  mem
• Executive Function
• Word finding, letter cancellation
• Basic abilities
• Numeracy and literacy

12
Employment

• All activities done in last month
• Current job details
• Health and work disability
• Retirement

13
Dimensions of economic status

• Income
• Earnings
• Public private transfers Pensions/annuities

• Wealth
• Pensions, housing and financial asset
• Consumption
• Food, fuel and housing

14
Other topics included in CAPI

• Expectations
• Access to transports
• Effort Reward
• Final Questions

15
Timed walk

• Aged 60 and over
• 8 feet
• Included because good predictor of other
  limitations in functioning developing

16
Content of the Self-Completion
17
Self Completion

• Social participation
• Access to services
• Activities outside the home
• Television watching
• Altruism
• Life satisfaction
• Quality of Life
• Relationships
• Attitude to work
• Ladder ranking exercise
• Alcohol consumption
• Fruit and vegetables consumption

18
Anchoring Vignettes

• For a given dimension of, e.g. health or
  functioning
• Individuals first rate themselves
• Then are given brief descriptions of hypothetical
  individuals
• To quantify whether people evaluate the same
  situation differently

19
Reasons for including vignettes on ELSA

• To assess the reliability and comparability of
  subjective measures across subgroups in areas in
  which objective measures are not available
• To extend this to comparisons between ELSA and
  other studies
• To extend this to comparisons across time
• To provide a way of adjusting distributions to
  take account of different response behaviours
  across groups

20
Health and Work Vignettes
21
Thank you