Lifestyles and socioeconomic predictors of successful ageing.

Project description

The population in most industrialised countries is ageing rapidly, and understanding what factors enhance successful ageing is a major challenge. Although considerable research has been devoted to factors associated with cognitive ageing, rather less focus has been placed on the interaction among these factors. Furthermore, much information has been received from cross-sectional research, and examining risk factors over the life course is particularly valuable since cognitive decline and dementia diseases usually develop over a long period and several years before symptoms appear. In this project we can extend such an approach with longitudinal analyses. Examining the characteristics of successful cognitive ageing will benefit from an interdisciplinary approach that involves scientists from several fields. This project will be conducted within the interdisciplinary research programme, Ageing and Living Conditions (ALC), Umeå University. The ALC centre holds the newly developed Linnaeus database, which combines data from several different longitudinal Swedish databases. The unique Linnaeus database opens opportunities for new research into the relation among cognitive ageing, dementia, health, lifestyle behaviours, and socioeconomic conditions. The aim of this interdisciplinary project is to investigate risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia diseases with a specific focus on the impact of education, occupational complexity, and leisure activities.