English Longitudinal Study of Ageing: Waves 0-11, 1998-2024

 
<p>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:</p>
<ul>
<li>construct waves of accessible and well-documented panel data; </li><li>provide these data in a convenient and timely fashion to the scientific and policy research community;
</li><li>describe health trajectories, disability and healthy life expectancy in a representative sample of the English population aged 50 and over;
</li><li>examine the relationship between economic position and health; </li><li>investigate the determinants of economic position in older age; </li><li>describe the timing of retirement and post-retirement labour market activity; and
</li><li>understand the relationships between social support, household structure and the transfer of assets.
</li></ul>
<p>Further information may be found on the <a href="https://www.elsa-project.ac.uk/">
ELSA project</a> website, the or <a href="https://natcen.ac.uk/participant-contents/elsa-50-health-and-life">Natcen Social Research: ELSA</a> web pages.</p>
<p><b>Wave 11 data has been deposited - May 2025</b></p>
<p>For the 45th edition (May 2025) ELSA Wave 11 core and pension grid data and documentation were deposited. Users should note this dataset version does not contain the survey weights. A version with the survey weights along with IFS and financial derived datasets will be deposited in due course. In the meantime, more information about the data collection or the data collected during this wave of ELSA can be found in the Wave 11 Technical Report or the User Guide.  </p>
<p><strong>Health conditions research with ELSA - June 2021</strong></p>
<p>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  read the ELSA User Guide or if you still have questions contact
<a href="mailto:[e-mail]">[e-mail]</a> 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).</p>
<p>For information on obtaining data from ELSA that are not held at the UKDS, see the ELSA <a href="https://www.elsa-project.ac.uk/genetic-data-access">Genetic data access</a> and <a href="https://www.elsa-project.ac.uk/accessing-elsa-data">Accessing ELSA data</a> webpages.</p>
<p><span>Wave 10 Health data</span> <br>
Users should note that in Wave 10, the health section of the ELSA questionnaire has been revised and all respondents were asked anew about their health conditions, rather than following the prior approach of asking those who had taken part in the past waves to confirm previously recorded conditions. Due to this reason, the health conditions feed-forward data was not archived for Wave 10, as was done in previous waves.</p>
<p><em>Harmonized dataset:</em></p>
<p>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).</p>
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<p><em>ELSA COVID-19 study</em>:<br>
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,
<a href="https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/studies/study?id=8688">English Longitudinal Study of Ageing COVID-19 Study</a>.<i><br>
</i></p>
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