The European Commission has identified ageing as the most pressing policy issue of the century. Valid and comparable longitudinal data on health are essential for evidence-based policymaking and require better measurement instruments and methodologies for longitudinal and cross-population comparative analyses. After an in-depth critique of existing ageing studies, COURAGE in Europe will develop, and validate in population surveys in Finland, Poland and Spain, measures, grounded in the WHO's ICF Classification, of health and health-related outcomes for an ageing population. COURAGE is not proposing another ageing study, but the development of a tool to measure health and health-related outcomes, for an ageing population, that offers objective and evidence-based prevalence trends, and which relates these to both quality of life and well-being outcomes as well as to the role of determinants of health and disability such as the built environment and social networks.

Coordinator:
Dr Matilde Leonardi
Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta
Neurology, Public Health, Disability Unit
Milano, Italy
leonardi@istituto-besta.it
EC contribution: EUR 2 999 992
Duration: 36 months
Starting date: 01/05/2009
Project web-site: http://www.courageineurope.eu