Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. 

The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) is a longitudinal survey of ageing and quality of life among older people that explores the dynamic relationships between health and functioning, social networks and participation, and economic position as people plan for, move into and progress beyond retirement. The main objectives of ELSA are to: construct waves of accessible and well-documented panel data; provide these data in a convenient and timely fashion to the scientific and policy research community; describe health trajectories, disability and healthy life expectancy in a representative sample of the English population aged 50 and over; examine the relationship between economic position and health; investigate the determinants of economic position in older age; describe the timing of retirement and post-retirement labour market activity; and understand the relationships between social support, household structure and the transfer of assets. Further information may be found on the ELSA project website, the or Natcen Social Research: ELSA web pages. Health conditions research with ELSA - June 2021 The ELSA Data team have found some issues with historical data measuring health conditions. If you are intending to do any analysis looking at the following health conditions, then please contact elsadata@natcen.ac.uk for advice on how you should approach your analysis. The affected conditions are: eye conditions (glaucoma; diabetic eye disease; macular degeneration; cataract), CVD conditions (high blood pressure; angina; heart attack; Congestive Heart Failure; heart murmur; abnormal heart rhythm; diabetes; stroke; high cholesterol; other heart trouble) and chronic health conditions (chronic lung disease; asthma; arthritis; osteoporosis; cancer; Parkinson's Disease; emotional, nervous or psychiatric problems; Alzheimer's Disease; dementia; malignant blood disorder; multiple sclerosis or motor neurone disease). For information on obtaining data from ELSA that are not held at the UKDS, see the ELSA Genetic data access and Accessing ELSA data webpages. Harmonized dataset: Users of the Harmonized dataset who prefer to use the Stata version will need access to Stata MP software, as the version G3 file contains 11,779 variables (the limit for the standard Stata 'Intercooled' version is 2,047). ELSA COVID-19 study: A separate ad-hoc study conducted with ELSA respondents, measuring the socio-economic effects/psychological impact of the lockdown on the aged 50+ population of England, is also available under SN 8688, English Longitudinal Study of Ageing COVID-19 Study.ELSA W10 data release:For the fortieth edition (January 2024), the Wave 10 core dataset and pensions grid dataset have been added to the study, along with the questionnaire documentation. The core dataset contains all core variables but does not contain longitudinal or cohort weights. Users should note that in Wave 10, the health section of the ELSA questionnaire has been revised and all respondents were asked about their health conditions anew, rather than following previously adopted approach of asking them to confirm previously recorded health conditions for those who have taken part in the past waves. Due to this reason, the health conditions feed-forward data will not be archived, as done in previous waves. A further edition of the Wave 10 data and documentation is planned within the first few months of 2024, which should include data with weights, IFS DVs, IFS Financial DVs, the technical report and user guide. 

Main Topics:

For a full table of topics and questions covered across all the ELSA waves, see the all waves user guide in the documentation. Standard Measures used in ELSA: Rose Angina Questionnaire: Rose, G. and Blackburn, H. (1986) Cardiovascular survey methods, World Health Organization MonographEdinburgh Claudication Questionnaire: Leng, G. and Fowkes, F. (1992) 'The Edinburgh Claudication Questionnaire: an improved version of the WHO/Rose Questionnaire for use in epidemiological surveys', Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 45, pp.1101-1109MRC Respiratory Questionnaire: Fletcher, C. et al. (1978) The natural history of chronic bronchitis and emphysema, Oxford: Oxford University PressCES-D Depression Scale (8-item): Rasloff, L.S. (1977) 'The CES-D Scale: a self-report depression scale for research in the general population', Applied Psychological Measurement, 1(3), pp.270-278General Health Questionnaire (12-item): Goldberg, D.P. Manual of the General Health Questionnaire, Windsor: NFER-Nelson, 1978CASP-19: Hyde, M. et al. (2003) 'A measure of quality of life in early old age: the theory, development and properties of a needs satisfaction model [CASP-19]', Ageing and Mental Health, 7, pp.186-194Ryff Scale of Psychological Wellbeing: Ryff, C.D. (1989) 'Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological wellbeing', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, pp.1069-1081, and Ryff, C.D. and Keyes, C.L. (1995) 'The structure of psychological wellbeing revisited', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(4), pp.719-727

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Clinical measurements

Compilation/Synthesis

Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)

Physical measurements and tests

Face-to-face interview

Self-administered questionnaire