CLSA has opened its newest computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) site at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C. It will play a key role in data collection for the most comprehensive study of aging ever undertaken in Canada. The CATI site is under the direction of Gerontology Professor Andrew Wister, who is the CLSA lead for SFU.

The CATI centre will employ 12-15 people, including graduate students and other staff, to conduct interviews with some of the 50,000 people from across the country who have been recruited to take part in the 20-year CLSA. The new centre is one of four CATI sites in Canada responsible for conducting in-depth interviews by telephone every three years with about 20,000 of the study participants, as well as 30-minute maintaining contact interviews  between each three year period with all 50,000 participants. An investment of $110,000 from CLSA CFI funds was used to set up the SFU CATI site.

CLSA also has CATI sites in Winnipeg, Man., Sherbrooke, Que., and Halifax, N.S.

The CLSA was launched in 2010 and is collecting data from 50,000 people aged 45 to 85 at recruitment about the medical, psychological, social, lifestyle and economic aspects of their lives. More than 21,000 people have completed the first wave of telephone interviews, with the second wave of interviews to start this summer.  In addition, more than 25,000 other participants have completed in-home interviews and visited one of 11 data collection sites across the country to undergo a range of physical tests such as hearing, heart function, bone density, mobility and many other measures related to overall health.

One of the CLSA data collection sites (DCS) is also at SFU. It has been operating since 2011.