LASA data - themes and topics
All available LASA data can be roughly subdivided into about 220 topics, ranging from “blood pressure” to “church attendance”, and from “domestic help” to “anxiety”. They are divided into different themes. These themes are:
Includes topics like the use of care, but also the provision of care, ideas about care and thoughts about the end-of-life.
This theme includes information about the neighborhood in which the participants live, contacts with children, grandchildren and other family members, friends and neighbors. Data on loneliness, leisure activities and norms and values are also collected.
Includes information from multiple cognitive tests, such as memory executive functioning and information processing tasks.
Data are collected on the participants’ past and current work, about retirement age and possible disability. Information about the partner’s profession is also collected.
This covers various subjects that touch on emotion and well-being. For example topics like anxiety and depressive symptoms, but also ‘satisfaction with life’ and sleep, sexuality and self-esteem.
The presence of diseases and results from grip strength tests, hearing and vision tests are collected. Also data on eating habits, smoking and alcohol consumption, medication use, pain, exercise and falls are collected.
A large proportion of the participants of LASA have had blood and urine drawn. Hair has also been collected from some participants to extract cortisol. The biomaterial obtained is stored in freezers of the LASA biobank and analyzed for hormone levels, vitamin and cholesterol levels, but also at DNA level.
Demographic information includes age, sex, marital status, partner status, living conditions and various socioeconomic characteristics, among others.
For more details about the themes and topics used in LASA, please visit menu option LASA data.
