Why have I been chosen?

 Why we’ve got in touch with you

You’ve been selected to take part in ELSA 50+ Health and Life because either you’ve already taken part in the Health Survey for England and at the time, you kindly agreed to us contacting you again, or because you've already taken part in ELSA.

The great thing about interviewing the same people again is that we can link to information collected already to get even more value out of the survey.

Even if you've been asked to take part in the past and have said no, we'd love you to take part now.

 Why you’re so important to us

You can’t be replaced by anyone else, as this would bias the results and we need to speak to as many people as possible in order to have enough information to make the survey meaningful.

 We want to hear from everyone

It’s really important to us and our funders and collaborators that our research represents the views of everyone aged 50 and over living in England.

You might be retired, unemployed or still working nine to five. You could live alone or have a large family. You might be struggling financially or comfortably off. You could be feeling fit and healthy or dealing with health problems.

Whatever your situation your experiences are important to us.

Why have I been asked to do the interview on behalf of someone else?

If someone has been selected to take part in the survey but is unable to do the interview, you may have been asked to complete the interview on their behalf.

Usually they will have asked you to do this for them, but if they aren't able to do this we may ask you to assess whether the person would wish to take part in the study if they were able to. 

Every single one of the people we invite to take part in ELSA is really important, including people who aren't able to take part in person.