The Whitehall II study: A core resource for ageing research

High quality and reproducibility in science cannot be achieved without a robust study design and high-quality data. The 37-year follow-up of 10,308 Whitehall participants from early midlife to old age with 8 clinical examinations, linked electronic health data and a biorepository which includes over 360,000 stored blood, urine, and hair samples is a unique resource for studying ageing and factors that affect the development and progression of chronic conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, cardiometabolic diseases, and multimorbidity.

To maximise the potential of Whitehall as a source of scientific discovery and replication and in accordance with recommendations from the MRC, we propose a cost-effective infrastructure that consists of an accessible biorepository and continued update of health outcomes of Whitehall participants via linkage to health records. Accordingly, we seek MRC funding for costs arising from biosample storage, data extraction services from national registers, and employment of staff to maintain the bioresource, facilitate biosample/data selection and transfers to collaborators; to update and process linked electronic health record data; to manage data sharing with the wider research community ensuring research governance requirements are met; and to curate new data for release to Dementia Platform UK ensuring that the most updated data and derived variables are fully documented and deidentified prior to release.

As recommended by the MRC, this proposal does not request support for data analysis or further clinical examinations.

With continued infrastructure support, Whitehall resource will uniquely contribute to research aimed at understanding healthy ageing and age-related conditions, and continue to inform prevention, clinical guidelines and policy.