The BLSA Home Visit Program

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The activities conducted in the context of this project are summarized below: 1. Trace and update contact information on BLSA participants who are not currently coming to Baltimore for follow-up assessment, never formally dropped out from the study, and have been contacted (in person or over the telephone) at least once since 1990. 2. Make a telephone contact with the BLSA participants eligible for home visits to establish their status, their willingness to participate in the home visit program or, if not, in a telephone interview. 3. Create a formal process for tracking, contacting and following BLSA participants, and implement a process where traditional visits and home visits are integrated and serve complementary purposes. 4. In BLSA participants enrolled in the home visit program, conduct an extensive ascertainment of the health status, aimed at ascertaining multiple health-related outcomes (dementia, mobility limitation, ADL disability, frailty, CHD, cancer etc.). 5. In BLSA participants enrolled in the home visit program, collect a blood sample to be used for basic tests of clinical chemistry, DNA extraction and storage of cells, serum and plasma. 6. Provide participants and their families with a detailed description of the study, and obtain informed consent for participation, including consent for the use of previously collected biological specimens. 7. Create a database with all the tracking information and all information collected over the telephone interview and during in person home visits, maintaining full compatibility with the BLSA core database.