The Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH, PI Hugo Westerlund) is a prospective survey of work, labour market participation and health initiated in 2006 and comprising all respondents of the Swedish Work Environment Surveys from 2003-2019 (SWES, total N=57 104), making the participants approximately representative of the Swedish working population at entry into the cohort. Questionnaires are sent out every second year and responses are linked to a comprehensive set of administrative register data. The youngest participants are 18 at the first wave and participants have so far been followed up to the age of 85 years. The questionnaires have a strong focus on psychosocial working conditions and health, with data also on private social circumstances and health behaviours, as well as special questions for those who are temporarily or permanently out of employment. Register data add sociodemographic, occupational and health information. There is also a version of SLOSH for young persons (17-29) who are still studying or transitioning into the labour market called Y-SLOSH (Young SLOSH, N=19 618) with similar aims as main SLOSH but with questions also about study environment, future prospects etc. At age 30, Y-SLOSH participants are transferred to main SLOSH. Finally, SLOSH also has access to SWES data from 1989 and onwards with linked administrative register data for studies of long-term health outcomes. SLOSH is part of the national REWHARD research infrastructure.
SLOSH cohort profile:
https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyy090
The IMAS project (Insurance Medicine All Sweden) at Karolinska Institutet (PI Ellenor Mittendorfer-Rutz) includes extensive annual microdata, linked at individual level from several nationwide registers, for eight cohorts of all individuals who lived in Sweden during the respective cohort inclusion year. In all, 14.4 million people are included (of which many have died). For each individual, extensive register data are available on socio-demographics, type of incomes, family situation, occupational history, diagnosis-specific morbidity, sickness absence, disability pension, and mortality are available for the years they lived in Sweden. The large numbers of older people and the yearly and detailed data provide good possibilities to perform important subgroup analyses. Moreover, 160,000 of them have also responded to the Survey of Living Conditions (ULF – SILC), which also adds self-reported data on a range of issues; 50,000 of them more than once.
The English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing (ELSA) is an open-access, nationally representative longitudinal survey of those aged 50 and over living in the community in England.
The same group of respondents have been interviewed at two-yearly interviews, to measure changes in their health, economic and social circumstances. Every four years participants have also undergone a health visit which involves measurements of physical function, anthropometric measurements and collection of blood samples (for extraction of biomarkers and DNA). The sample is regularly refreshed to retain the representativeness. To date the study has accomplished 10 waves of data collection.
Finnish Retirement and Aging study (FIREA) (PI Sari Stenholm) is a longitudinal observational cohort on public sector workers who have been followed up with annual surveys, accelerometer and clinical measurements during retirement transition to post-retirement years. FIREA was set up to study changes in health behavioral and cardiometabolic risk factors during retirement transition, and to examine long-term consequences of work and retirement on health and functioning with advancing age.
FIREA survey cohort includes 6,783 participants, activity sub-study 908 participants and clinical sub-study 290 participants. The next follow-up will be conducted during 2023-2024, when participants are 70 years old. Collected data include survey items about health, chronic diseases, physical functioning, memory, lifestyle factors, psychosocial distress, social networks, work-related physical and psychological stressors as well as retirement intentions. Accelerometer data is collected with wrist-, thigh- and waist-worn devices. Clinical examination includes fasting blood sample, hair sample, measurements of anthropometry, body composition, cardiovascular function, physical fitness, physical and cognitive function. The cohort is linked to national registers including information on e.g. hospital admissions, prescription medication, rehabilitation and work place injuries.
Website
https://sites.utu.fi/firea/en/
The Constances cohort, initiated in France with the aim of building a comprehensive and representative population-based cohort, serves as an accessible infrastructure for researchers and public health agencies. It comprises approximately 219,000 adults, aged between 18 to 69 at inception. This infrastructure provides invaluable resources for studying a plethora of health-related topics, including chronic diseases, aging, occupational health, and healthcare social disparities.
The cohort participants are annually monitored through self-administered questionnaires, health examinations occurring every 3-5 years, and complete linkage to administrative databases such as the French national health data system (SNDS) which provides healthcare consumption and CNAV (Caisse Nationale d’Assurance Vieillesse) database which provides information on employment status, income, and retirement benefits. Thus, Constances offers a rich dataset comprising thousands of variables sourced from self-reported data, clinical and biological test results, cognitive and physical assessments, healthcare usage data, employment-related factors, environmental (such as air pollution levels and proximity to green space …) and occupational exposure. A biobank supplementing the dataset for a sizable fraction enhances its depth. This exhaustive longitudinal data collection facilitates comprehensive studies on the multifaceted factors influencing occupational and health trajectories.
