About HKADA

Population aging is a global issue and addressing the needs of the aging population poses large challenges. According to the local statistics, the life expectancy at birth had increased to 83.2 years for men and 87.7 years for women in 2021 (Department of Health, 2022). Despite numerous efforts to uncover factors influencing healthy aging, there is a lack of systematic empirical data to understand the developmental trajectories of middle-aged and older Hong Kong Chinese adults. Therefore, the current project aims to develop a local longitudinal database on adult development and aging to record the within-individual changes in physical and mental health, social relationships, and cognitive functioning over time. Data of this longitudinal database are valuable for future investigation on development trajectories of local aging populations and will provide rich empirical data for making future long-term policies related to the aging population.

This project started in November 2020 and ended in January 2023, with the major goal of establishing the baseline measures of the Hong Kong Longitudinal Study on Adult Development and Aging (HKADA). A total of 2392 Hong Kong Chinese residents aged 45 years and above were successfully recruited and completed a face-to-face interview and standardized physical and cognitive assessments. In addition to the modules commonly covered in other international databases, such as demographic information, employment, physical health and psychological characteristics, the current project specifically focused on examining the latest situation in retirement preparation, participation in volunteering activities, cognitive function, utilization of healthcare services, and information and communications technology (ICT) use for various purposes.

Funding Source

The HKADA was funded by the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme (Project Number: 2020.A1.101.20B) of The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

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