HAALSI Baseline Survey

The Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI) study is a population-based survey implemented by the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit of the University of the Witwatersrand. HAALSI aims to examine and characterize a population of older men and women in rural South Africa with respect to health, physical and cognitive function, aging, and well-being, in harmonization with other Health and Retirement Studies. The baseline survey was conducted in November 2014-November 2015 among 5,059 men and women aged 40 years or older, who were randomly sampled from within the existing framework of the Agincourt health and socio-demographic surveillance system (AHDSS), in rural Mpumalanga province, South Africa. The baseline survey was administered by local field workers in Shangaan at the participants' homes using computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI). Extensive survey data was collected on cognitive and physical functioning, social networks, cardiometabolic disease and risk factors, HIV and HIV risk, and economic well-being. The survey also included anthropometric measures and point-of-care blood tests for hemoglobin, glucose and lipids. Two additional rounds of data collection are planned over the next five years. Future data releases will share results from dried bloodspots (DBS) that were collected during the survey and tested for HIV, HIV viral load, HbA1c and CRP, as well as more extensive laboratory follow-up testing on a sub-sample of participants. The laboratory sub-study was administered in collaboration with the H3Africa/AWIGEN study (Genomic and Environmental Risk Factors for Cardiometabolic Disease in Africans), which will examine genetic data from these participants.