Aging in Manitoba Longitudinal Study

The Aging in Manitoba Longitudinal Study (AIM) is currently the most comprehensive data resource in Canada for understanding the relationship between health and aging. Begun in 1971 by the late Betty Havens, the AIM database is unique in two ways. First, it is one of the largest and most extensive population-based longitudinal studies of aging in existence. Second, it is the only population-based longitudinal study of aging that combines complete health services utilization data with interview data.

Beginning in 1971, AIM conducted in-person interviews with 4,803 randomly selected Manitobans age 65 years and older living in the community or in nursing homes. A second cross section of 1,302 seniors was surveyed in 1976, and a third cross section of 2,877 seniors was surveyed in 1983. Also in 1983, the 2,401 who were still available from the 1971 and 1976 cross sections were reinterviewed as the first panel. In 1990, a total of 3,228 survivors from all three cross sections were reinterviewed. AIM again surveyed the remaining 1,868 survivors from all previous cross sections in 1996 and surveyed the remaining 1,012 in 2001. The shortest panel is four waves over 18 years, and the longest panel is five waves over 30 years. The database contains more than 2,000 interview items and 400,000 service encounters per participant.

Interviews in 1971, 1976, 1983, 1990, and 1996 collected information on sociodemographics; social psychological, physical, and mental health status and functioning; economics; health practices; leisure activities; care and support networks; perceptions; and consumption of services. The interview data have been linked to the full spectrum of health services utilization data kept by the provincial Ministry of Health. This includes medical hospital, nursing home, and home care data from 1970, pharmacare data from 1994, and immunization data from 2003. In addition, vital statistics on date, place, and cause of death from the Canada Mortality Data Base (Statistics Canada) can also be linked to the interview data.

Research using AIM data has addressed diverse questions such as income and expenditures, self-perceived financial security, unpaid work, health status, use of physician services, home care and nursing homes, successful aging, social isolation, compression of morbidity versus expansion of disability, self-perceived health status, health locus of control, formal [Page 25]and informal social support, informal care, ethnic diversity, perceived respect, characteristics of the oldest old, health of aging women, sample attrition and sample mortality, influenza immunization, and persistent good health. Policies that have been implemented as a result of AIM analyses include the removal of health insurance premiums for seniors, the addition of nursing homes to universal insured services, the initiation of public home care delivery, increased awareness of older women in women's health, increased sensitivity to isolation and loneliness among older women and men, and increased sensitivity to seniors in natural disasters.

The AIM database is a valuable resource for purposes of continuing gerontological research, education, and policy development. The inclusion of both interview and utilization information makes AIM well-suited to analyses of health and social policy issues relative to seniors in general and to questions that are best answered by studying changes over time in particular.

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