Thirty-three research teams from across Canada have received a combined total of nearly $2.3 million in federal funding to support analyses of longitudinal data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA).

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) launched the Catalyst Grant: Analysis of Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) Data in 2023. The funding opportunity is intended to support Canadian researchers in using the extensive available data within the CLSA research platform.

Funding is provided through the CIHR Institute of Aging, Institute of Population and Public Health, Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis, Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health, Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, Institute of Gender and Health, and the Institute of Infection and Immunity,  in partnership with the Quebec Network for Research on Aging (RQRV).

A selection of supported projects from the 2023 competition will harness omics data – encompassing genetics, epigenetics or metabolomics – to investigate questions about the underlying mechanisms of biological aging and help understand the factors that contribute to specific health outcomes.

Examples of funded projects include:

• Air Pollution and risk of COPD: investigation of harmful air pollutant(s) and thresholds of exposure levels, and sex-specific genetic susceptibility
  Dr. Zhiwei Gao, Memorial University

• Using metabolomics to examine the association between diet, inflammation, and frailty in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA)
  Dr. Lauren Griffith, McMaster University
• How does socioeconomic position become biologically embedded? A cross-national comparison of associations between socioeconomic position and epigenetic aging in middle-aged and older adults in Canada and the US
  Dr. Dana Lee Olstad, University of Calgary
• Combined effects of genetic risk and brain insulin-responsive gene networks on psychiatric and metabolic comorbidities in the Canadian Longitudinal Study in Aging (CLSA)
  Dr. Patricia Silveira, CIUSSS de l'Ouest-de-l'Ile-de-Montréal-Douglas Hospital

Two funded projects will examine impacts of COVID-19 by investigating the resilience of Veterans and by examining how the pandemic affected work productivity among middle-age and older adults.

• Positive Epidemiology – Pre- and peri-pandemic psychological resilience in older Veterans in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging
  Dr. Christina Wolfson, Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre
• Trajectories of work productivity loss: working from home and insights during COVID-19
  Dr. Wei Zhang, University of British Columbia

Other projects will shed light on the pathways to healthy aging – investigating how factors such as where we live and how we live can have an impact.

• Aging exceptionally well: identifying and characterizing “SuperAgers” in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging database
  Dr. Erin Mazerolle, St. Francis Xavier University
• Health status of rural Canadians 2.0
  Dr. Philip St. John, University of Manitoba

For a full list of funded projects, click here.

CIHR has awarded more than $8 million in funding to Canadian researchers since the first CLSA data analysis funding opportunity was launched in 2016. The most recent awards mark the fifth competition. 

The CLSA follows more than 50,000 men and women who were between the ages of 45 and 85 at the time of recruitment, for 20 years. Ongoing research projects and collaborations using CLSA data span biological, clinical, social and population health disciplines, and are aimed at understanding how various factors impact the maintenance of physical and mental health, and the development of disease and disability as people age.

To date, nearly 600 projects have been approved to use CLSA data. To learn more about data access, click here.

The CLSA is a strategic initiative of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Funding for the CLSA platform has been provided by the Government of Canada through the CIHR and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Additional support has been provided by several provinces, affiliated universities, and research institutions across Canada.