Adult Health & Aging

Over the last decades, improvements in fighting infectious diseases have led to increases in the prevalence and importance of non-communicable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Adults now live longer, but many, especially as they grow old, suffer from chronic diseases that need to be treated. 

The Adult Health and Aging working group aims to examine the effects of this health transition on adults by studying three cohorts of older adults in African settings that have reached different stages of the transition. Its examinations will cover physical and cognitive functioning, cardiometabolic disease, HIV, and productivity. The first survey will begin at Agincourt HDSS in South Africa, and the study is planned over the next three years to extend to Ifakara HDSS in Tanzania and Navrongo HDSS in Ghana. The working group secured funding for the project from National Institute on Aging and National Institutes of Health in 2013.