Network / RIFA

The RIFA (Recherche internationale sur la fragilité des aînés – French acronym for International Research on Frail Elders) project aims to increase knowledge of frailty among older people in order to better plan social and health services and to orient health promotion interventions. The RIFA project plans to integrate existing data from six sources: the Nutrition and Aging (NuAge) study, the Fragilité, une étude longitudinale de ses expression (FRéLE) study, the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA), the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

The aims are to identify common frailty profiles across nations in order to explore similarities and differences in prevalence and determinants across nations, to characterize trajectories of frailty over time, to identify correlates of profiles and determinants of trajectories of frailty (with a particular interest for neighborhood and social correlates/determinants) both within and across nations, and to investigate consequences of frailty in terms of chronic illnesses, depression, disability, autonomy, and use of medical services and its associated costs.