TILDA — The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing
Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
2009
The Irish Longitudinal study on Ageing (TILDA) is an inter-institutional initiative led by Trinity College Dublin which aims to produce improvement in the quantity and quality of data, research and information relating to older people and ageing in Ireland.
In scope: Eligible respondents for this study include individuals aged 50 and over and their spouses or partners of any age. The study will involve interviews on a two yearly basis with a sample
cohort of 8,000+ people aged 50 and over (or their spouses/partners) and resident in Ireland, collecting detailed information on all aspects of their lives, including the economic (pensions, employment, living standards), health (physical, mental, service needs and usage) and social
aspects (contact with friends and kin, formal and informal care, social participation). Both survey interviews and physical and biological measurements are utilised.
Out of scope:
TILDA is not a clinical study and does not provide diagnostic health outcomes for participants.
(A full statement of purpose available at - https://tilda.tcd.ie/publications/reports/pdf/Report_DesignReport. pdf- TILDA Design Report, 2010)
A nationally representative sample of adults aged 50 and over, resident in Ireland, was selected. An initial multi-stage sample of addresses was chosen by means of the RANSAM sampling procedure, which was developed by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) based on the Irish GeodirectoryOver 8,500 people have taken part to date.
Six waves of fieldwork have been completed so far. Wave 1 of TILDA took place from October 2009 to February 2011. Wave 2 took place from April 2012 to January 2013. Wave 3 took place from March 2014 to October 2015. Wave 4 took place from January 2016 to December 2016. Wave 5 took place from January 2018 to December 2018. Wave 6 interviews took place from March 2021 to December 2021, with the health assessment component due to start in mid-2022.
TILDA collects information on all aspects of health, economic and social circumstances from people aged 50 and over in a series of data collection waves once every two years. TILDA provides a comprehensive and accurate picture of the characteristics, needs and contributions of older persons in Ireland to inform and support improvements in policy and practice; advancements in technology and innovation; tailored education and training through an enhanced ageing research infrastructure; harmonisation with leading international research to ensure adoption of best policy and practice and comparability of results.
TILDA is primarily used by academic researchers, masters and PhD students, policy makers, and health, social and economic researchers.
TILDA collects a wide range of data on the health, economic and social aspects of participants’ lives through personal interviews, self-completion questionnaires and health assessment measures. Some of the main topics included in the data are demographics, social circumstances, income & assets and subjective & objective health measures.
A data dictionary for all publicly available waves of TILDA is available on https://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/tilda/
Medical card numbers of participants are collected during data collection.
The dataset contains age, gender, location of residence, occupation, social class, education level, religion and income.
Each wave of data collection involves a structured Computer Aided Personal Interview (CAPI) with a trained interviewer in the participant’s home. Each participant is also left a ‘self-completion questionnaire’ including potentially sensitive questions for them to fill in and return to TILDA by mail.
At alternating waves of data collection, each participant is invited to undergo a health assessment, either a full health assessment at a specialised TILDA health centre or a modified partial assessment in their own home where travel to a centre was not practicable.
If a participant is unable to complete an interview themselves due to physical or cognitive impairment, a proxy interview completed by a close family member or friend is sought. If a participant has passed away between waves, a family member or close friend will be asked to complete an End-of-Life (EOL) interview of their behalf.
Data collection for each wave takes place every two years.
ICD-10 used in archived datasets.
N/A.
Data collection occurs in waves every two years. Full reports are published after each wave of data collection. Wave 1 report published 2011, Wave 2 report in 2014 and Wave 3 due in 2017. Wave 4 report published in 2018. Wave 5 report was published in 2020. The Wave 6 report will be published in 2022. Additional supplementary reports are published periodically. Academic papers and reports are published on an ongoing basis with over 400 journal articles and 50 reports published to date.
Archived datasets are available through the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA) at https://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/tilda/
No.
Six waves of data collection have taken place to date, with the third health assessment due to take place in mid-2022.