Spotlight session

Nordic infrastructures for ageing research: promises and pitfalls

Organisers and Chairs

Björn Halleröd and Debora Rizzuto.

The National E-infrastructure for Aging Research (NEAR) promotes and supports ageing research by facilitating the use of longitudinal population data from various well-known Swedish cohort studies on ageing and health. It is based on a collaboration among eight Swedish universities and includes 15 databases with individual assessments. NEAR’s mission is to enable high-quality ageing research by providing big health data while maintaining the same quality and richness as in single population-based studies. NEAR aims to increase national and international exchange and collaboration and enhance the quality and generalizability of ageing research results. NEAR provides a broad range of health and social data from around 90,000 older adults followed for 12 to 52 years.

Content and structure

This spotlight session will provide an overview of the current population-based infrastructures focused on health and ageing in the Nordic countries. The session will start with a summary of the significance of Nordic infrastructures in population health research. This will be followed by presentations of research infrastructures from Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. The session will close with a panel discussion among well-known international researchers within the field of health research infrastructures with a focus on ageing.

 Session participants

• Björn Halleröd, Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden. Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, Centre for Ageing and Health – AgeCap, University of Gothenburg, Mölndal, Sweden.
• Debora Rizzuto, Aging Research Center (ARC), Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences, and Society, Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Stockholm Gerontology Research Center, Stockholm, Sweden.
• Marianne Nygaard, The Danish Twin Registry and the Danish Aging Research Center, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
• Laura Fratiglioni, Aging Research Center (ARC), Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences, and Society, Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Stockholm Gerontology Research Center, Stockholm, Sweden.
• Bjørn Heine Strand, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway.
• Hanna Tolonen, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Helsinki, Finland.