HALCyon Healthy Ageing across the Life Course

Kuh, Diana (2018). HALCyon Healthy Ageing across the Life Course. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-851494

HALCyon brings together an interdisciplinary group of scientists working on nine UK cohort studies to understand three aspects of healthy ageing: physical and cognitive capability (the ability to undertake the physical and mental tasks of everyday living), psychological and social wellbeing (how people feel and how they function in terms of relationships and social activities), and the biology of ageing, including cortisol (one of the body's stress hormones), telomere length (the cell's natural clock that tells the body how old it is) and genetic factors. The eight projects will investigate how individual factors such as early development, lifetime health, personality and nutrition, and characteristics of areas in which study members have lived influence these indicators of healthy ageing. These factors may explain why some older people live fulfilled and active lives and why differences exist between men and women, or between social groups. Some cohort members will be interviewed to find out how they understand their life history and experiences and their response to ageing. Interactions between the scientists and experts in policy, practice and user involvement will ensure that the new knowledge gained will improve the lives of older people.

Data description (abstract)

1) Meta-data (for existing data) generated by the HALCyon project One of the main aims of HALCyon was to perform comparable analyses across 9 British cohort studies which tested the inter-relationships between: physical and cognitive capability; social and psychological wellbeing and; underlying biological markers of ageing. Another main aim was to test the associations of factors across life with each of these three sets of measures. In the majority of cases, this involved harmonising secondary data from the 9 participating studies which had been provided to the HALCyon study team by cohort PIs. The nine studies included were: the MRC National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD), the National Child Development Study (NCDS), Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 (LBC1921), Aberdeen Birth Cohort 1936 (ABC1936), Herfordshire Ageing Study (HAS), Hertfordshire Cohort Study (HCS), the Boyd Orr Cohort study, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and the Caerphilly Prospective Study (CaPS) . The first step in this process was to document details of the potentially relevant variables already collected and available in each study. The second step in this process was to write syntax which cleaned and recoded relevant variables for use in comparable analyses. In addition to the publications produced (see www.halcyon.ac.uk), other key outputs from HALCyon are: (i) the documentation created which lists out the comparable variables available in each cohort for topics of relevance to HALCyon; (ii) Stata syntax which was used to clean and recode existing data for use in analyses that were comparable across cohorts. These meta-data documents (i.e. variable lists by topic and stata do files) have been uploaded. 2) New data generated by the HALCyon project The NDA grant for HALCyon also included funds to: - collect comparable data on wellbeing in: Hertfordshire Cohort Study (HCS); Caerphilly Prospective Study (CaPS); Aberdeen Birth Cohort 1936 (ABC1936) - measure telomere length using existing blood samples in: Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 (LBC1921); CaPS; Hertfordshire Ageing study (HAS); NSHD (sub-set of samples) - perform cortisol assays using existing saliva samples in: CaPS and NSHD - undertake 60 qualitative interviews (30 each) in: HCS; NSHD. HALCyon makes use of secondary data from 9 different UK cohort studies so each study is responsible for governing their own consent forms. However, the consent form for the qualitative interviews has been uploaded. A user guide on the data/metadata that is available has also been uploaded.

Data creators:

Creator Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Kuh Diana	University College London	http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7386-2857

Sponsors:

ESRC

Grant reference:

ES/G00773X/1

Topic classification:

Health
Society and culture

Keywords:

epidemiology, ageing

Project title:

HALCyon Healthy Ageing across the Life Course

Grant holders:

Diana Kuh

Project dates:

From	To
15 September 2008	31 March 2014

Date published:

08 May 2015 15:47

Last modified:

23 Apr 2018 14:13

Coverage and Methodology

Collection period:

Date from:	Date to:
15 September 2008	31 March 2014

Geographical area:

Country:

United Kingdom

Data collection method:

With specific reference to the new data generated by the HALCyon project: -Wellbeing data were collected in HCS, CaPS and ABC1936 using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) (Tennant et al. Health Qual Life Outcomes 2007;5:63) which was included in a postal questionnaire sent to participants in each of these three studies at mean ages (years) of 73.2, 80.1 and 73.9, respectively. Syntax which generate total WEMWBS scores using responses to each of the 14 items in the scale have also been uploaded. [For further details see HALCyon publications including: Cooper R et al. AGE 2014;36:445-456] -Telomere length was measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in whole blood DNA at Professor Thomas von Zglinicki’s laboratory at Newcastle University using stored blood samples from: LBC1921; CaPS; HAS; NSHD. Blood samples had been taken during two previous waves of data collection at mean ages (in years) of: 79.1 and 86.6 in LBC1921; 64.5 and 72.8 in CaPS; 67.0 and 76.3 in HAS and; 53.4 and 62.7 in NSHD. [For further details see HALCyon publications including: Gardner M et al. PLoS One 2013;8(7):e69526] -Cortisol was measured using saliva samples that had been collected by study participants using salivettes at specified time points throughout the day, as instructed by study nurses, in CaPS at ages 65-83 years and in NSHD at ages 60-64 years. Saliva samples were frozen at the time of collection and subsequently assayed (using HALCyon funds) by radioimmunoassay at a laboratory in Dresden specialising in high through-put cortisol assays. [For further details see HALCyon publications including: Gardner M et al. Psychoneuroendocrinology 2013;38:40-49] -Qualitative data were collected during semi-structured interviews with 60 participants from the HCS and NSHD (30 in each study). [The content of the interview topic guide, the sampling strategy and the characteristics of the sample achieved are described in a Centre for Longitudinal Studies working paper (2011/5), by Jane Elliott et al, October 2011: http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/library-media/documents/CLS%20WP%202011-04%20-%20The%20design%20and%20content%20of%20the%20HALCyon%20qualitative%20study.pdf] These new data were ascertained in established British cohort studies. These studies and references to more detailed information on each individual study are all described on www.halcyon.ac.uk and in Cooper et al. PLoS One 2011;6:e27899.

Observation unit:

Individual

Kind of data:

Numeric, Text

Type of data:

Cohort and longitudinal studies

Resource language:

English

Access and Administration

Data sourcing, processing and preparation:

The new data generated by the HALCyon project were ascertained in established British cohort studies. These studies and references to more detailed information on each individual study are all described on www.halcyon.ac.uk and in Cooper et al. PLoS One 2011;6:e27899. Details of how to access other data, in addition to the data generated by HALCyon, from these studies are also provided. All data generated by the HALCyon project (as outlined in the data collection method section) have been anonymised, labelled, cleaned and checked to ensure their quality. Where syntax files are available to generate derived variables from these cleaned raw data these have also been uploaded. However, data users should perform their own checks of these data prior to use as additional cleaning and recoding may be required dependent on the research question to be addressed.

Rights owners:

Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Kuh Diana	University College London	http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7386-2857

Contact:

Name	Email	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Swift, Info	mrclha.swiftinfo@ucl.ac.uk	University College London	Unspecified

Notes on access:

The Data Collection is available for download to users registered with the UK Data Service. All requests are subject to the permission of the data owner or his/her nominee. Please email the contact person for this data collections to request permission to access the data, explaining your reason for wanting access to do the data. Once permission is obtained, please forward this to the ReShare administrator.

Publisher:

UK Data Archive

Last modified:

23 Apr 2018 14:13