TILDA awarded €10 million for ageing research
The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), will get a €10 million cash injection over the next 5 years from the Health Research Board (HRB) to fund its research on ageing. By 2021, about one in seven in the Irish population will be aged 65+ and by 2031 this age will have grown to one in ever five Irish citizens. The ongoing research will provide a critical source of evidence to help practitioners, policy makers and planners understand the changing and growing needs of this population into the future.
Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Marcella Corcoran Kennedy, said the findings of Wave 3 show that we have a way to go in optimising the health and wellbeing of older people. “My Department and the HSE will examine these findings with a view to identifying the responses we need to ensure the best outcomes for older people. I am happy that the Department of Health has been able to provide €10 million to support the continuation of TILDA. I look forward to working with TILDA to ensure that policy-making is more and more based on good research and hard evidence”.
Dr Mairead O’Driscoll, Interim Chief Executive at the Health Research Board said the Health Research Board would actively work with TILDA and the Department of Health to set up a dedicated Knowledge Translation Group. “The aim will be to make sure that we ask the right questions to inform future health needs and that the data gathered reaches the right people to underpin changes in policy and practice,” she added. The recent WAVE 3 Research Findings undertaken by TILDA confirms that older people make an enormous contribution to our society. The results show that half of older adults provide regular childcare to their grandchildren, half engage in volunteering to varying degrees, and the vast majority of financial transfers are from older adults to their children rather than vice versa. So far from later years being a time characterised by decline and increased dependency, older adults continue to make valuable contributions to society.
