Study looks at Albertans aged 45-85

Alberta has the highest percentage of people between the ages of 45-85 who are licensed drivers and with household incomes above $150,000, according to an initial report from an aging study conducted across Canada’s 10 provinces.

The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) released its baseline data report Tuesday collected between 2010 and 2015 from 50,000 Canadian participants aged 45-85.

The report found Albertans had the highest average income above $150,000 with 23 per cent of the respondents. The province also tallied the lowest proportion of participants with income less than $20,000 at four per cent, said David Hogan, the principal investigator from the University of Calgary.

The Calgary site is one of 11 across the country that evaluated 3,000 individuals for the study.

Another 20,000 individuals are involved remotely through phone interviews, including participants from across the province.

The income results aren’t too surprising, Hogan said, because the Alberta economy was booming at the time of the first data collection early in the decade.

The study recently completed its second round of data collection and will begin work on a second analysis and report for the last few years.

“I don’t know what the followup showed, but there might have been some change in the financial status in the cycle we just finished because of the downturn,” Hogan said.

This is where the longitudinal aspect of the study will show its benefits, Hogan said, since researchers will be able to look at how the data changed over a 20year period for the aging population across the country.

“Looking at what happens to people over time and whether their characteristics when they were younger predicted how well they aged in the future, that’s when the real work of the study will come through,” Hogan said.

Driving was not surprisingly the main mode of transportation across all provinces, but Alberta was a little bit higher than the rest with 86.9 per cent of the respondents in the age group being motorists. As well, the province had the most licensed drivers currently in the age group with 96.6 per cent.

Being the “homeland of oil and gas,” this statistic wasn’t too surprising to Hogan.

Overall, Hogan said the study is a way to improve aging across the country and promote what it means to age well — and that is what researchers hope to learn from the study.

“What leads to aging well and what can we do to promote that and also to have a really realistic perspective of aging in Canada,” Hogan said of what he plans to take away from the long-term results of the study. “There’s a lot of doom and gloom about an aging Canada which I think is uncalled for.”