The interim scientific report of the QASP research project has been submitted to the funding institution. This report gathers the activity of the 4 groups that work in the project, as well as the dissemination group.
The project addresses two of the pillars of active ageing (AA), namely health and participation. Originally, active ageing is a political and action framework emanating from the World Health Organization (WHO), and based on a series of pillars and determinants to achieve quality of life (QoL) as one ages. It is precisely in this context of AA and QoL in which the GIE-CSIC group has been working and carrying out activities related to research and the dissemination of results in face-to-face and written media during the 18 months of 2019-2020. In relation to the research and the topic of the QASP project, complementary activities have been carried out with two other projects (ENVACES, ENCAGE-CM, already completed, and of a holistic nature), and a third has been achieved (ENCAGEn-CM, focused in one of the aspects that underlie the pillars and determinants of AA, ageism and age stereotypes). Concerning knowledge transfer, in short, they have organized and/or participated in face-to-face events (congresses, conferences, seminars) and impact publications have been made in scientific journals and in books (all this can be seen in the previous sections). Likewise, they have organized and / or participated in specialized training courses (CSIC Specialization Course: Active Aging, Quality of Life and Gender, April 23 to June 30, 2019; Seminar "Theoretical and methodological approaches to population changes in the 21st century: The challenge of population ageing”, organized by the UAM, November 11, 2019). In addition, GIE-CSIC has contributed in WP4 with two posts, one on Retaining senior talent, and the another one on Active ageing and age-friendly communities.
The Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII) group has worked on preparing the database for the project, as well as preparing the principal component analysis to generate the variables to be used in the studies. During the time of the study, the group has published an article and has proposed writing two others. The first one has been submitted and focuses on the validation of the Portuguese version of the CASP-12 scale, used in the SHARE project and which will be the main outcome variable. The second paper is about the longitudinal analysis of the determinants of QoL in the three countries participating in the study (Spain, Portugal and Sweden). The ISCIII team has presented two communications at conferences, which have received awards. In addition, researchers of the group have contributed with a blog post, have taught in various courses related to ageing and are directing a dissertation from a student of the Master in Public Health of the National School of Health (ISCIII).
The group from Portugal has participated in the regular meetings of the project to define variables to include in the various studies of the project and to structure the SHARE database, as well as to define the methodology to be adopted. They have also participated in the planned bibliographic review and in the operationalization of the multiple analyzes in progress and in the structuring / discussion of results. The main outputs are the co-authorship of two scientific articles currently in writing / finalization (one related to the longitudinal analysis of QoL and its association with healthy aging in Spain, Portugal and Sweden; another one regarding qualities psychometric aspects of the Portuguese version of CASP-12) and leadership in the writing of a third article on the health and social participation factors associated with the change in QoL in the Portuguese SHARE sample (wave 4 and wave 6). In addition to integrating in some communications made at congresses, the team has also collaborated in WP4 with a post on exceptional aging and will submit a paper to the annual congress of the American Association of Gerontology (GSA) that will have the call for abstracts in July 2020.
In the framework of the Project, the Swedish Group has recruited a student from the Master of Public Health at Karolinska Institutet (Sweden) to carry out the project entitled “Are loneliness and social isolation associated with QoL in older adults? Insights from Sweden and Spain”. The project has been adapted to the manuscript format and it is planned to send it for publication in the coming weeks. The group has also contributed to the project blog with an entry (https://bit.ly/3cSo9C7 ) about the study entitled "Psychological correlates of multimorbidity and disability accumulation in older adults" published by our group.
Concerning the group of the Carlos III University of Madrid (University Institute of Gender Studies), they contributed in the writing of a post on European older women, ikigai and activity from a gender perspective. In addition, this team submitted an abstract to the congress of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology on aging and the Covid-19 which was accepted. Their contributions (conferences, papers, mentoring of students..) are about various topics (mainly: technologies, images, caring, rural-urban, family-work balance, violence, ecofeminism and environment, evaluation of programmes, i.e.), from an intergenerational and gender approach. Finally, the group performed statistical analysis and supervised undergraduate students who worked on the theme of the project.
During the next 18 months, we will focus our activities on submitting scientific papers with the results of the research project, and disseminating results to the civil servant society. To this aim, a symposium will be organized at the end of the project, where the main conclusions will be presented and discussed.
