In Episode 8 of the ELSA Podcast we discuss what the study tells us about the benefits of volunteering with James Nazroo from the University of Manchester, John Hannen from Ambition for Ageing and Oldham-based volunteer Pauline Coltman.

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In Episode 7 of the ELSA Podcast, UCL researcher Dorina Cadar and Hannah Churchill from the Alzheimers Society talk about how a specially-designed sub-study of ELSA is helping us better understand dementia.

• The Healthy Cognitive Ageing Project (ELSA-HCAP)
• World Alzheimers Month

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In Episode 6 of the ELSA Podcast, DWP Deputy Director for Pensions & Later Life Analysis Laura Webster and Rowena Crawford, Deputy Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, talk about Pension Freedoms. Laura explains how and why the policy was introduced, how it works and why the English Longitudinal Study is so important in helping the DWP understand people's pension behaviours. Rowena Crawford talks about what we know already from ELSA about how people are responding to the changes and some of the challenges and concerns around it.

Useful links

• Savings, pensions and wealth, IFS
• Pensionwise website\

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In Episode 5 of the ELSA Podcast, Catherine Foot, Director of Evidence at the Centre for Ageing Better, discusses how the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) helps the charitable foundation create change in policy and practice to improve employment, housing, health and communities.

She discusses the Foundation's State of Ageing in 2019 report, which uses publicly available data including ELSA to give a snapshot of what life is like for people aged 65 and older today and explains why the study is crucial to the foundation's efforts "to add life to our years".

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In Episode 4 of the ELSA Podcast Dr Daisy Fancourt, Associate Professor in Psychobiology and Epidemiology at UCL, talks about her research looking at the benefits of social prescribing to help people age more happily and healthily. She explains how data from ELSA has been key in exploring the links between social factors and health.

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In Episode 3 of the ELSA Podcast, we speak to Dr Elizabeth Webb, Senior Research Manager at AGE UK. She shares her experiences of using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing to influence policy both as an academic researcher and more recently at Age UK where the research she and colleagues undertake is used to influence decision makers, develop public policy proposals and shape policy agendas to transform older people's lives for the better.

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In Episode 2 of the ELSA Podcast, Jim Smith, one of the architects of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and its 40 sister studies around the world talks about ELSA's US counterpart and big sister, the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and why having an international family of ageing studies is helping us get to grip with what happens as we get older.

We also hear from Rose Anne Kenny, the academic behind the Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing (TILDA), which is working to make Ireland the best place in the world to grow old.

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In Episode 1 of The ELSA Podcast we talk to Professor Sir Michael Marmot who helped launch the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing in 2002 about how it came about and how it can help tackle social inequality. We also hear from the study's current Principal Investigator Professor Andrew Steptoe about how the study works, how researchers can use it to better understand what happens as we age, how Government Departments use it to develop policies on pensions, loneliness and dementia and his hopes for the study's future.

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