HAALSI - Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa

HAALSI is a longitudinal, population-based survey implemented by the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and the Medical Research Council (MRC)/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit of the University of the Witwatersrand, and is funded by the National Institutes on Aging.

HAALSI aims to examine and characterize a cohort of 5,059 men and women ≥ 40 years of age in rural South Africa with respect to health, physical and cognitive function, aging, and well-being, in harmonization with other Health and Retirement Studies around the world.

This webinar will feature the HAALSI research team: Dr. Julia Rohr – Research Scientist/Project Director; Dr. Elyse Jennings - Research Scientist; David Kapaon – Research Assistant.

Julia Rohr is the project director of HAALSI. She oversees all aspects of this complex and ground-breaking study, including data management and analysis, research dissemination, as well as training team members on data collection. Recently, she served as research associate on the Willows Reproductive Health Impact Evaluation project at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the Department of Global Health and Population, leading project work in Turkey. Prior to joining us at Harvard, she worked as a data analyst in the Center for Global Health and Development at the BU School of Public Health, where she served as program manager for a number of studies in Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda. Julia holds a PhD in epidemiology from Boston University.

Elyse Jennings is a family demographer and sociologist working on the HAALSI project to oversee survey development and aspects of data preparation. Her substantive work on HAALSI is focused on understanding the interrelationships between family experiences and health. Prior to joining us, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Carolina Population Center. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Michigan. Her past work has focused on family formation and dissolution in South Asia, as well as adolescent sexual behavior in the U.S.

David Kapaon is a research assistant helping with data collection, management, and analysis for the HAALSI project. He holds a dual MA/MS in sustainable international development, and global health policy and management from the Heller School at Brandeis University. Prior to joining HCPDS, David helped conduct research examining the economic and health impacts of the Health Extension Program in Ethiopia.

During this webinar, we will:
-Provide an overview of the HAALSI project
-Describe the importance of the data that have been collected and archived
-Discuss how to access and work with the HAALSI datasets.