A machine learning approach to identifying healthy aging: developing healthy aging phenotypes and personas in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

Our understanding of what it means to age in a healthy and successful way has largely been driven by researchers. There is increasing recognition that ‘lay’ perspectives of healthy aging provide valuable information, yet it is often unclear how to capture this information and incorporate it into definitions of healthy aging. There is even less understanding of how to translate this knowledge into practice and policy. Using the CLSA, we make use of the large volume of data and use new approaches to link people’s perceptions of the meaning of healthy aging to their personal characteristics and assessments of their own healthy aging. We will use this information to create personas, or character profiles, that depict Canada’s aging population.