Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa [HAALSI]: Agincourt, South Africa, 2015-2019

The Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI) study is a population-based survey that aims to examine and characterize a population of older men and women in rural South Africa with respect to health, physical and cognitive function, aging, and well-being, in harmonization with other Health and Retirement Studies.

The baseline survey was conducted among 5,059 men and women aged 40 years or older, who were sampled from within the existing framework of the Agincourt health and socio-demographic surveillance system (AHDSS), in rural Mpumalanga province, South Africa. Survey data were collected on cognitive and physical functioning, social networks, cardiometabolic disease and risk factors, HIV and HIV risk, and economic well-being. The survey also included anthropometric measures and point-of-care blood tests for hemoglobin, glucose and lipids. Dried bloodspots (DBS) were collected at the survey and later tested for HIV, HIV viral load, glucose and CRP. A sub-sample had more extensive laboratory follow-up testing, which will be available in future data releases. A second wave of the survey was administered in 2018 through 2019.

Demographic information includes age, sex, income, education, marital status, number of children, and employment.

Harvard dataverse hosts an additional restricted-use dataset which compliments this collection, the HAALSI Baseline HIV Biomarker Data; users interested in obtaining these data must request access based on the terms outlined in the data use agreement.

Weight variables ipw_mortality, and ipw_attrit account for those respondents who were not part of the second wave of data collection due to death, or other miscellaneous attrition reasons, respectively.

Anthro_weight, and Bio_weight, account for whether a respondent consented, and had a positive reading for any of the anthropometric test measures (height, weight, and blood pressure), or any of the biological test measures (glucose, and hemoglobin), respectively. These were created to account for the systematically random missing responses within each of the "consent-to-test" questions - (see w2vc201), 3.

The final three weights are products of some combination of the above weights - (MA_weight = mortality x attrition, MAA_weight = mortality x attrition x anthropometric, and MAB_weight = mortality x attrition x biological).