Key Features

• The Sri Lanka Health and Ageing Study (SLHAS) is a nationally representative cohort study of the Sri Lankan population, established to provide a multidimensional platform to understand and track health and ageing.
• The SLHAS aims to undertake periodic surveys every 3–5 years. Wave 1 recruited and interviewed in person 6668 participants of all adult ages during 2018/19, with adults aged 70 years and older oversampled.
• Waves 2 (2021/22) and 2x (2022/23) have interviewed 74% (n=4904) of participants by telephone, with non-response due to death, illness, emigration and refusal in an additional 4% (n=292). The remainder could not be contacted by telephone, but the study expects to reach most of these in a future field survey.
• All waves cover: (i) health and general wellbeing; (ii) social determinants; (iii) health care use; and (iv) work and retirement. Wave 1 undertook physical examinations, collected biomarkers and biobanked blood and urine samples; and Waves 2/2x covered the impacts of COVID-19, economic crisis and public opinion.
• The SLHAS design maximizes comparability with other international surveys, particularly the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) family, to support cross-national comparisons.
• SLHAS will make data available to other researchers, with Wave 1 data to be released from 2024.