The Spanish Aging Longitudinal Study (ELES) is an interdisciplinary panel study created to track elderly Spanish population born before 1960, for a period of 20 years. The ageing process from a Spanish representative sample will be analysed by collecting periodical information every two years.

The data collection will be done through periodical interviews to participants and by collecting supplementary data (blood, DNA and anthropometric measurements) on participants.

The specific ELES goals are:

• To analyze evolutionary processes of persons aged 50 years and older with a multidisciplinary approaching.
• To provide scientific evidence of the complex relationship between health, familiar biography and work biography, emotions and other indicators of the daily life.
• To identify critical periods in the life course in order to design preventive planning.
• To analyze tendencies and to measure the relative contribution of several factors what affect the ageing process.
• To have a public tool in order to get specialized information on biomedicine, economy, sociology, psychology, demography and aging epidemiology.
• To offer good results based on scientific data to improve the planning of health and social policies for the ageing.

What dimensions are considered in ELESs?

In ELES, the following dimensions will be considered:

• Demographic Background
• Psychosocial Area
• Health
• Economy
• Family & Social environment

ELES collects data on these 5 areas through self -reported questionnaires, bio-scoreboards, anthropometric measures and carrying out tests. This network includes coordinating teams (INGEMA and CSIC), teams of instrumental contribution, thematic collaborators in different areas (Alzheimer illness and degenerative dementias, genetic engineering, social relations, mortality and economic), advisors and scientific committee to international level. Likewise, it requires the acquisition of a data processing application that guarantees the work in network of the different teams, the exploitation of the information collected and its public availability for the use of other researchers.