Close
More than 19,000 people have taken part in the study since it started in 2002, with the same people re-interviewed every two years.
ELSA collects information on people’s physical and mental health, wellbeing, finances, and attitudes around ageing and how these change over time.
Data from ELSA participants informs policy across all aspects of ageing including health and social care, retirement and pensions policy, and social and civic participation.
ELSA was established as a sister study to the Health and Retirement Study in the US. ELSA is now part of a growing network of longitudinal ageing studies around the world which provide national data on ageing as well as the opportunity for cross-national comparisons.
The principal investigator for ELSA is Professor Andrew Steptoe, Head of the UCL Research Department of Behavioural Science and Health.
The ELSA Study Team:
Sarah Assaad
Brian Beach
Mikaela Bloomberg
Laura Brocklebank
Cesar de Oliveira
Giorgio Di Gessa
Jessica Gong
Shabina Hayat
Darina Peycheva
Shaun Scholes
Rina So
Paola Zaninotto
ELSA Project Manager: Kate Coughlin (k.coughlin@ucl.ac.uk)
ELSA Administrator: Najma Hussain (najma.hussain@ucl.ac.uk)
Collaborators: Institute for Fiscal Studies, The University of Manchester, NatCen Social Research and University of East Anglia
ELSA is jointly funded by the US National Institute on Ageing via the National Institutes of Health in the US and by a consortium of UK government departments: Department for Health and Social Care; Department for Transport; Department for Work and Pensions, which is coordinated by the National Institute for Health Research. Funding has
also been provided by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Image by Centre for Ageing Better