Seminar Series
Title
Update on the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA)
Speaker
Dr. Lindsay Wallace
Time and Date
12 – 1 pm, Thursday, Oct 9, 2025
Location
MS Teams Join the meeting now
Bio
Dr. Lindsay Wallace is an Assistant Professor in Community Health and Epidemiology at Dalhousie University and a co-Principal Investigator of the Dalhousie Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging site. She completed an MSc at McGill University in Neuroscience, a PhD from Dalhousie in Interdisciplinary Health Studies, and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Cambridge in Public Health. The focus of Dr. Wallace’s research is understanding the physical, social, and structural conditions that give rise to chronic disease, and how we can implement scalable solutions to reduce morbidity. The majority of her research to date has examined the interplay between frailty and dementia in this context. Dr. Wallace’s work is inherently interdisciplinary and blends insights from epidemiology, public health, and neuroscience to address the complexity of aging and disease. She analyses data from large longitudinal cohort studies to support her research, as well as using interventional techniques and policy analysis.
Synopsis
The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) is a large, national research platform that follows more than 50,000 Canadians between the ages of 45 and 85 at baseline to better understand the aging process and its impacts on health, social, and economic factors over time. Participants are followed for up to 20 years. Data are collected every 3 years through questionnaires (on health, lifestyle, social, and economic factors), in-depth physical assessments at data collection sites, and biological samples (like blood and urine) for biomarker and genetic analyses. Data collection happens across 11 sites in 7 provinces, making it one of the largest and most detailed aging studies in the world. In this presentation, Dr. Wallace will review the platform, including information on data availability, access, and research impact, as well as focus on its utility for student researchers, as well as the resources available to support its use.