Cohort Profile: The Healthy Aging Longitudinal Study in Taiwan (HALST)

Why was the cohort set up?During the past century, there have been dramatic improvements in life expectancy in Taiwan, with the average life span increasing from 30.0 and 32.1 years for men and women in 1908 to 77 and 83.5 years in 2016, respectively. 1As a consequence of this demographic transition, the population in Taiwan has rapidly been ageing.Currently, persons aged 65 and older comprise about 12.5% of the Taiwanese population; this proportion is projected to reach 14% in 2018 and 20% in 2025. 2 With the ageing of a population comes an increase in prevalence of chronic diseases and geriatric syndromes, and an expansion in healthcare costs that impose a huge burden on the whole society. 3For example, cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, hypertension and chronic kidney disease have been listed among the 10 leading causes of death among the elderly in Taiwan for the past decade. 4he high prevalence of chronic kidney disease in the elderly (estimated to be over 37% 5 ) is another example indicating that an ageing population is one of the most important factors behind the high incidence and prevalence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in Taiwan. 6hus, it is essential to understand more about risk factors attributable to the ethnicity-specific ageing process so