Three McMaster University researchers will lead new projects analyzing data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA).

McMaster projects include:

• Laura Anderson, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact, will examine the characteristics associated with obesity to determine if adults fall into obesity subgroups, which may help to tailor treatment and prevention strategies.
• Lauren Griffith, an associate professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact, will examine different types of frailty and determine how frailty is related to how much people use the health-care system.
• Chris Verschoor, an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, will identify biomarkers for healthy aging in older adults.

Each project will receive approximately $70,000 in funds, as part of an announcement today of $1.2 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Space Agency and Quebec Network for Research on Aging.

Using the CLSA platform, the researchers will seek to better understand various factors related to health and aging and create knowledge that will guide program and policy development to support healthy aging.

“The Government of Canada’s continued support of research into healthy aging has been instrumental in ensuring the success of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging research platform,” said Parminder Raina, the lead principal investigator of the CLSA and a professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact at McMaster.

The CLSA research platform 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. The National Coordinating Centre of the CLSA is based at McMaster.

The decisions are posted online. Researchers interested in accessing the CLSA data can apply online by visiting the CLSA’s website.