The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (Mohfw) has entrusted the Population Research Centre, Kerala University, the task of conducting the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI) in Kerala
LASI has been launched by the Mohfw under the tertiary-level activities of the National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly (NPHCE), to assess the health status of the elderly and to provide comprehensive longitudinal evidence based on the health, economic, social and overall well-being of people aged 45 years and above, in India.
The main goal of LASI is to collect credible scientific data on the burden of diseases, mental health, functional health and the social and economic well being of elderly population.
The data is collected on internationally comparable research design and tools and adopts cutting edge scientific methods to provide credible data, which will help in national and State-level policy making and long-term scientific research.
LASI will provide data on demographics, household economic status, health and bio-markers, health insurance and health care utilisation, family and social network, social welfare programmes, work and employment, retirement and pension, life satisfaction and expectations.
Project in India
The project in India is being led by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, an autonomous organisation under the Mohfw, in collaboration with the Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health and University of Southern California. It is financially supported by Mohfw, UNFPA India and the National Institute of Health/National Institute of Ageing, U.S.
Trained field survey teams will conduct household survey in sampled households to collect data from villages and urban wards.
