Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare released India Report on Longitudinal Ageing Study of India (LASI) Wave-1 on the virtual platform. LASI is a full–scale national survey of scientific investigation of the health, economic, and social determinants and consequences of population ageing in India.

The LASI, Wave 1 covered a baseline sample of 72,250 individuals aged 45 and above and their spouses including 31,464 elderly persons aged 60 and above and 6,749 oldest-old persons aged 75 and above from all States and Union Territories (UTs) of India (excluding Sikkim).

Dr Vardhan noted, “The LASI has embraced state-of-the-art large-scale survey protocols and field implementation strategies including representative sample of India and its states, socioeconomic spectrum, an expansive topical focus, a longitudinal design, and the use of Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing(CAPI) technology for data collection, quality control, and Geographic Information System (GIS). A unique feature of LASI is the coverage of comprehensive biomarkers.”

The Minister affirmed that the LASI data shall assist in addressing the broad aims of the Decade of Healthy Ageing and will lead to convergence within various national health programmes and also promote inter-sectoral coordination with other line Departments/Ministries.