 Welcome, everyone. I'm Praminder Reina, the lead principal investigator of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. And thank you for joining us today. I would like to begin today's webinar by acknowledging that, as a national study, the CLSA is located on lands that are home to many diverse Indigenous nations. We respect the treaties that were made on these territories and acknowledge the harms and mistakes of the past as we dedicate ourselves to moving forward in partnership with Indigenous peoples and communities in spirit of reconciliation and collaboration. Before we begin our session today, I have a few housekeeping things to go through. Today's presentation is being recorded and live streamed on YouTube. Close captions are turned on to change caption settings, select captions at the bottom of the Zoom window. If you have questions or comments, you can type them in the question and answer box at the bottom of the Zoom window. However, please note that questions submitted in advance will be prioritized. If you have any technical issues, please use the chat box to inform our communication team. And finally, only the presenters audio and video will be enabled throughout the webinar. Our agenda for today will include an update on the CLSA, followed by three presentations that highlight key CLSA findings and impacts of the study. As much as possible, our speakers have tried to incorporate the question you submitted into their presentations, but we had our work cut out for us. There were more than 500 questions submitted in advance, but Our presenters first presenter will be Dr. Christina Wilson is a professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Occupational Health and Department of Medicine at McGill University, and a senior scientist at Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center. And Dr. Wilson is also a principal investigator of the CLSA. She leads the Neurological Conditions Initiative and the Veterans Health Initiative. She is also the director of the CLSA data curation center and a site principal investigator of the Montreal CLSA data collection site. Our next speaker who will follow Dr. Wilson is Dr. Vanessa Taller. She's a professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa and a scientist at Brear Research Institute, where she serves as a site principal investigator for the CLSA. Her current research focuses on the impact of bilingualism on language and cognitive processing, development of neuropsychological testing material for detection of dementia, and changes in brain activity and cognitive impairment and dementia. Next speaker will be Dr. Virena Manek is a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences in the Max Ready College of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. She's the inaugural site principal investigator of the Winnipeg data collection site for the CLSA. Her main research interests lie in the area of areas of healthy aging, determinants of healthy aging, social isolation and loneliness, and age friendly communities. Our final speaker will be Dr. Brent Richards is a professor, William Dawson Scholar and FRSQ clinician scientist, FRSQ is a Quebec Health Funding Agency at McGill University and a senior lecturer at King's College London, England, trained in genetics, clinical medicine, endocrinology, epidemiology and biostatistics. Dr. Richard focuses on understanding the genetic determinants of common age, aging related endocrine diseases such as osteoporosis and diabetes. He's the co-lead of the CLSA biomarker working group. And some of the faces you see on the screen are our lead team that is spread across the country. And what I'm going to do is to take few minutes to introduce you to some of our other investigators who are not part of the Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. That's what we are targeting today. Yeah, and these are the people from our other sites and we will be introducing them in future webinars. And we also have some slides here that introduce many of our coordinators across the country who you probably see all the time whenever you go and visit our sites. And these are the people who actually make this make study happen. What I'm going to do is to go to the next slide and talk about a little bit of the history of the CLSA. In 2001, this was a long journey before we even started to engage anyone of you. 2001, there was a meeting that was held in Ottawa to think about designing a study of this nature that wasn't, and we put in a grant application we were fortunate to receive the funding. I think we've had our first investment in from the federal government to launch this study in 2009. So you can see here for eight, almost eight, nine years, we were just developing this study to make sure that that we will have a robust study as we get ready to implement 2010 recruitment began the baseline data collection began in 2011. We renewed our funding in 2015 so, and then we reached our recruitment goal of the initial cohort in 2015 of 50,000 participants. Next slide please. So you can see here 10 years of data collection are happening in 2021 we are a couple of years late acknowledging that because of the pandemic. The first data set for researchers to use was released in 2015 so over 10 years since the first data release would be in 2025 so as a part of your engagement in the CLSA or the for the past 10 years. So thank you for participating in this study, and without your participation your commitment your dedication, we wouldn't have the data that we have collected to date, and we intend to collect for another 10 years. I'm going to pass on to Dr. Christina Wilson for giving you an update about the CLSA. Thank you. Thank you for parminder for that intro I'm always a little bit shocked when I see that we started working together in 2001. And here we are in 2023 with the success of the study, largely due to our magnificent participants and I'm so glad that that people are having the opportunity to be part of this webinar. And I want to just take a minute. I've been tasked with talking a little bit about the nuts and bolts of the study and I hope I can explain a few things if you're if these are things that aren't clear. So we did we describe that the study and not you must be familiar with us calling it the CLSA as both a research study and a platform and some people say well what's the difference. The difference is that in a research study. There's a very clear plan with specific questions that are targeted and then what we collect should relate to these specific questions so we did that. We did that over those nine years when we were doing the planning. But what's a platform. Well, if you think about a diving platform so you probably all watch the Olympic games and you've seen people on the platform diving. So CLSA is a platform in that sense. It's been built, and then people can go up there and dive off using the data that's collected in the CLSA to answer many, many different questions so it's both a study and a platform and when we talk about the platform. We're talking about allowing researchers, according to our very formal process of review to use these data, both in Canada and around the world to answer research questions I wanted to go sort of clarify the difference between a study and a platform and we're both in the CLSA. Next slide. There are a lot of institutions and you've been introduced to a few people on this call this is really a national collaboration, the institutions are very supportive of the CLSA. So these are just the logos of the different institutions, both universities and research institutes that are involved. Next slide please. I'm all in scope and I'm always quite intrigued when I see a map of Canada and I see that the cities are all squashed down towards the border but the cities that you see there are where we have the data collection sites across the country. The little blue dots that you see are really meant to refer to the telephone interviews so we're able to do telephone interviews anywhere in the country obviously, but we can only do the in person assessments from individuals who are living close to our data collection sites, but it's definitely a national study. Next slide please. So, I wish I don't really have a pointer I don't think at this at this stage so that's a little bit of a challenge but anyway I'll just talk a little bit more about the platform things that you surely know from having read our participant newsletters. We've recruited out with over 50,000 participants at our at recruitment, and the individuals were aged between 45 and 85 at recruitment. There are a few questions that I went through all 500. And one of the things I want to just tell people is that there are no at this point there are no new participants being recruited, our recruitment ended in 2015. And so now this group of individuals are aging, you are aging, I am aging as well as a researcher, and I just did a little, a little note on my piece of paper here and I think our participants are now ranging in age from mid 50s to mid 90s, which is really exciting for us that we're able to follow you over this extended period of time and we're looking forward to another 10 years. We have a big COVID virus sitting in the middle we all know that COVID happened and we all know that it did affect the way we were able to collect data in the CLSA, we pivoted very quickly to telephone interviews so that we could not only of course keep you as participants engaged in the study, but I think we're very proud to say that we're able to keep our staff engaged by having them become a telephone interviewers, even though some of them weren't that before. So I think this is a testament to how we were able to pivot. And I do want to say, because I want to also address several comments, several questions that came in, we are contacting participants we are continuing to do in home assessments, but contacting some of you may be a little bit delayed because of the pandemic but we are looking forward to welcome you all to the data collection site if you're participating in the comprehensive cohort, or as part of the telephone interview if you're in the tracking cohort. So next slide Laura. Okay, so there have been some enhancements to this platform remember my diving platform analogy. What we've been able to do is we've been able to during the pandemic, we were able to add a questionnaire study, and we were had an amazing response from you with 28,000 participants agreeing to participate in that. We were also able to launch a covert antibody study during that time, again taking advantage, not only of you of course but also of this platform to be able to get some real time information about a global pandemic. In the very recent years we've added some other enhancements we're doing a memory study. We also have a healthy brains and healthy aging initiative study, and we have seriously implemented our proxy questionnaire for those participants who can no longer participate on their own, but need someone to help them and we also are had launched in 2021 a covert brain health study and I'm sorry I don't have time to discuss the details of each one of these right now but just to say that we're building upon this platform as we move forward in time. Next slide please. I'm going to talk about data collection, we have data collection on all of our participants through questionnaires where individuals, all of you are being asked to answer a large number of questions, and I have a little bit of a personal story to tell you here, hopefully won't take too much time In 2013, I got a telephone call from my mom, and she said to me, I had a call from someone in Halifax, and they said they wanted me to be part of a study. And I'm not going to mimic my mother's Yorkshire accent, but she did say to me, is this your study love? So my mother, who's pictured here with my dad, was a participant in the tracking cohort so I've seen both sides of the study. She passed away last year. But I also want to say that I was her proxy, so what have been able to complete proxy interviews for her. So the tracking cohort is a very important part of the CLSA. We've had our husband added new in this new follow up we've added some additional questions, and we were able to release the tracking data a little bit earlier than the data from the comprehensive participants and there's been a large number of publications and I know that our subsequent speakers are going to talk about that shortly. Next slide please Laura. So the physical assessments for those of you who come into our data collection sites and battle parking and travel time. There are we all know that there are a lot of physical assessments that we're asking you to do and we've added in this wave of data collection wearables, and there are a few subsequent slides about that so that's what's been added new. We have cognitive assessments as well as the bio specimen collection blood and urine and this year we've added for a part for part of the group as stool samples as well. So next slide. So just a minute to talk about the mobility trackers. I'm really impressed when I go into our data collection site, and I see all these being set up and plugged in, ready to hand off to the participants so we've included tick watch a thigh act to graph. And this is being asked of all comprehensive participants and I really appreciate those of you who've agreed to do this and agree to do this data collection at home in between your in home visit and your data collection site visit. So next slide. So we have the sleep trackers I haven't tried this one out myself, but I know that the staff, the Montreal data collection site have. So this is a headband, the muse, and there's also a risk act to graph and what we're doing here is tracking sleep quality and sleep patterns, and there'll be a subgroup of our comprehensive participants who are being asked to participate in this so 2360 out of the total number. Next slide. Just briefly speaking about one of the things on the previous slides that the Western healthy brains and healthy aging initiative, we were able to obtain funding from the Western Family Foundation to add MRIs magnetic resonance imaging studies and stool samples for this subgroup of comprehensive participants, and then the stool samples only for 6000 comprehensive participants and again, I want to thank those of you who have agreed or been asked and who have agreed to participate in this. For for for some of the sites I know you have to go somewhere else beyond the data collection site so it's much appreciated that you're given this extra time to the CLSA. This, this is the response to a number of your questions and I think this is a really excellent question to ask. So what's happened to the 51,338 of you that agree to participate. Well by the end of our second follow up for just seven to little over 7% of you had withdrawn from active data collection, although the vast majority consented to continue through data linkage. So this is really quite a small number for such a large study, given what we're asking you to do just a little under 7% of participants have died since their baseline assessment. And this is one of the things that happened to me I completed the decedent interview on for my mother and I, I felt that she really would have wanted me to complete her data collection for the CLSA she was very proud of being a participant and when I cleaned out our house I had to remove the magnet from her fridge that she got from the CLSA. So we have, we have to think about ways to try and prevent losses. And there were quite a few questions from people about not being contacted and I hope, hopefully it will be contacted soon. We've added some questionnaires that can be done online. For those of you who move outside of the area, if that's needed. And again, introducing the proxy questionnaire for a proxy who can actually answer the questions for a participant who for whatever reason, decides that they're not able to answer questions themselves. Next slide please. So, there are a lot of publications, scientific publications and reports that have come out of the CLSA using data researchers who are using these data. And this is just a slide to show you a few of those there has been publications on depression during the pandemic about informal caregivers. We've had quite a few publications on vaccine willingness, just overall not just COVID of course but also influenza. And we, there are researchers who've always also looked at the relationship between mild COVID and mobility problems so you can see even just with these few examples. The scope of the data allows researchers to come in to use the data in their own area of expertise and answer recent questions that are of interest to them. And we do have a dashboard on the CLSA website that is interactive that you can go and take a look at that provides some of the COVID study results. Next slide please. So these are the antibody some antibody study findings this has been another question that people asked more than 18,000 people provided blood samples, even during the pandemic so we're very grateful to that and we know that that was a hardship for many of you. Most of them were able to be tested. And for the presence of antibodies that indicated infection, many of the samples were collected before vaccines were available so this was one of the main things that we looked at. And clearly the rates of positive findings related to SARS-CoV-2 increased over time in all the provinces. Okay, so and younger participants were most likely to test positive, likely due to the fact that the older participants and people in Canada were probably staying away and isolating themselves a little bit more and there are also results additional results you can find on our website. Next slide please Laura. So how are these data being used. Next slide please. So as I alluded before to researchers who are using these data, there are more than 500 research teams that have been approved to use the data since 2014. What's interesting and I think this speaks well for the future of research and aging in Canada more than a third are led by trainees. And I think that's really important. This is a way that trainees under the supervision of senior researchers can access these data and perhaps even make studies using the CLSA data part of their career when they go into their full jobs. Most of the projects are based in Canada, but we now have research teams from the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Australia, who have learned about the CLSA, appreciate its value, and who have who are now using and publishing about results related to aging. And there have been over 320 publications and I should say that the CLSA does review each publication before it's submitted to a journal to ensure that the data have been used for the project that was approved and also that the description of the study is accurate. Next slide please. So these are just a few examples of the publications. So, again, you'll see the variety publications on nutrition or in the development of high nutrition risk publications on each friendly components of municipalities, successful aging and social participation. Genomic studies, genetic studies, season and daylight savings time on sleep symptoms. So it's just a vast number of areas. And then another paper that was recently published, these are all 2023 publications, looking at persistent COVID symptoms in community living older adults in the CLSA. And all of these publications are listed on our website and you should be able to access them, if you wish. Next slide please. So we've got a lot of media coverage, which is very exciting. We don't do this to get into the media, but we really want our results to be relayed in lay terms to the public and we've had publications here at Parminder in the New York Times, and also we've had publications in the Globe and Mail. We've had publications both in the English Press and in the French Press. So that's very exciting because I think the uptake from these kinds, this kind of coverage is often larger, of course, than scientific publications. So next slide please. So there have been some impacts on policy. We are connected with the World Health Organization and the CLSA data have been used in a baseline report on the decade of healthy aging. So that was a very exciting initiative that we were contacted, knowing the importance of the study and of your contribution that the World Health Organization was interested in this. And we participated with the COVID-19 immunity task force that was set up during the pandemic in order to do our COVID studies, at least one of our COVID studies. And we worked very closely with the Public Health Agency of Canada, providing them with information and sometimes they apply for data to do analyses of the data for policy reasons. Next slide please. Okay, so I think if I'm not mistaken that this is probably my last slide. We have to acknowledge the funding that has been received for this study. It is an ongoing activity to ensure that we have adequate funding to be able to collect these data and to prepare these data for research and also to be able to find the time and resources to reach out to participants through development of our newsletters and the dashboards on the CLSA. So it's very important to acknowledge the funding we largely funded by the Government of Canada through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, through the Canada Foundation for Innovation and also provincial governments and the universities. The Western Family Foundation, as I said before, has provided funding, COVID-19 immunity task force, the Jerebensky Research Institute at McMaster University and also the Nova Scotia Health Research Coalition and the Public Health Agency of Canada. So I think if I'm not mistaken, Laura who's leading us, this is my last slide, just saying thank you to all of you for participating and if there are family members and friends on this call, thank you for supporting the CLSA participants and thank you for being here.