Azienda Sanitaria di Firenze (ASF) Provide a state‐of‐the‐art unique dataset of longitudinal measures of health, functional status, behaviour, lifestyle and environmental challenges collected in a representative elderly population living in Chianti area near Florence (Italy) over a 12‐year follow‐up. The sample of the population surveyed in the “InCHIANTI study” comprehends a wide range of functional abilities and was followed for 9 years using multiple measurements of strength, power, physical performance, and self‐reported mobility. A state‐of‐the‐art statistical approach has been developed by the InCHIANTI group to address topics of critical importance for the well‐being and quality of life of older adults. In particular, the InCHIANTI group will:
1. Provide a population sample of community‐dwelling subjects with low risk of fall.
2. Conduct and supervise the measurement process, including measured already validated in the InCHIANTI protocol and, potentially, new subsets of mobility measurements in agreement with the clinical WPs according to the technical WPs suggestions.
3. Collaborate in design the mobility assessment protocol for the high‐risk groups
4. Collaborate on the study groups’ database management.
The Azienda Sanitaria di Firenze (ASF), established on 01.01.1995 by the National Health Service law 833/78, is one of the largest health care public agencies in Italy, with a jurisdiction on 33 municipalities and provides a pool of about 850,000 inhabitants, mostly living in the metropolitan area. The ASF is organized in 10 departments and has 6.640 employees. It consists of the 6 hospitals for a total of 1088 beds with almost 35.000 hospitalisations and about 1 million of outpatients visits annually (2008). Besides the six priority lines of hospital activities (emergency surgery, planned surgery, high medical care, low care, outpatients, route birth), the ASF provides territorial services oriented in three key areas: hospital to home discharge, care planning, collective prevention. The population with more than 65 years represents the 25% of the entire residents living in the ASF area. Although the primary ASF mission is to provide care and prevention for the resident population, over the last few years there has been increasing interest in conducting high quality research activity, especially on topics related to public health. A Research Committee was recently nominated that provide support and promote research activities among the different departments. In particular, the main focus of the ASF research activity is to is to translate scientific evidence concerning new treatment, prevention and life‐style risk factors into practical interventions provided by the ASF medical and preventive facilities.
The Laboratory of Geriatric Epidemiology (INRCA) designed the InCHIANTI Study, in 1996 and conducted the baseline and the first 3ys follow up data collection; then in 2004 the study group lead by Dr Bandinelli joined ASF. Since that time, 2 more follow ups were conducted by a research group composed by 12 researchers (biologist, therapist, statistician, epidemiologist, medical doctors, nutritionist, data manager, psychologist). The group has organized national and international meetings on aging disability and elderly health profiles. It has maintained the availability to publically access to the data originated from the different surveys by a website, collaborating with scientists worldwide to conduct analysis and to present proposals for grants and scientific projects.
Dr Marco Colpo
Dr Nicoletta Zaffarana
