About the Senior Cohort
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In 2020/2021, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health established a longitudinal cohort of adults aged 65–80 years to study the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, called the Senior cohort.
The longitudinal population-based cohort study “the Senior cohort” was established late 2020 to gain knowledge on the consequences of COVID-19, as well as effects of vaccination and safety in older adults. The research study also aims to gather more information about health, quality of life, and disease in this age group.
Adults aged 65–80 years (born in 1940-1955) living in Oslo, Norway, were randomly selected from the Norwegian Population Register in 2020/2021. Approximately 5000 people consented to participate. A subset of about around 500 participants have also consented to donate blood. Questionnaires are regularly sent to all participants to obtain information about general health, COVID-19 vaccination, adverse events, respiratory symptoms, and SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Longitudinal blood samples have been collected at regular intervals, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells, serum, plasma, and DNA obtained. The blood samples are analysed to explore immunity after infection and vaccination, and epigenetics and biomarkers which may be important for short and long-term responses or symptoms, such as Long-Covid.
Participant data and national registry data may further be linked using the Norwegian unique personal identification number to obtain data on for example COVID-19 vaccination dates, vaccine type, and number of doses from the Norwegian Immunisation Registry (SYSVAK); and dates of PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections from the Norwegian Surveillance System for Communicable Diseases (MSIS).
The study has ethical approval from the Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics Southeast (229359).
Informed consent was obtained from all participants.
The project manager is Lill Trogstad, lill.trogstad@fhi.no
Inquiries about the study can be sent to: seniorkohorten@fhi.no
For a full cohort description, see Ravussin et al., Lancet Healthy Longevity 2023 (doi: 10.1016/S2666-7568(23)00055-7)
