Sustaining an ageing population calls for increased focus on prolonging good health and wellbeing across the whole life span, including old age. The TRILL project addresses the impact of later life transitions (i.e. work exit, loss of health or functioning, loss of a spouse) on opportunities for ageing well across gender, socioeconomic position and local context. TRILL aims to contribute to placing later life and ageing as a core concern in research on stratification and inequality and to new interdisciplinary knowledge at the intersection of health promotion, ageing well and social health inequalities. TRILL’s main objective will be analysed in three steps (1) Unraveling potentially vulnerable transitions in later life; (2) Investigating differential effects of transitions on wellbeing and functioning; and (3) Assessing how some older adults manage transitions in later life well, despite a low SEP throughout their lives. TRILL uses a lifecourse perspective, which emphasizes possibilities for growth and adaption in old age, as well as the importance of significant others and local context in shaping individual lives. Through its focus on variations in ageing well, the project does justice to the substantial heterogeneity among older people, in particular among those with low socio-economic position. A major strength is the use of national large-scale longitudinal ageing studies (NorLAG and Tromsø study), combined with register information and qualitative data. TRILL is a collaboration between the Health Services Research Unit (HSRU) at Akershus University Hospital, NOVA at OsloMet, the National Institute of Public Health and three leading institutes for ageing research in Europe, and includes representatives from a broad stakeholder group. Dissemination of project findings occurs through joint scientific publications in international peer-reviewed journals, seminars and workshops, and a mid-term and final conference. A first paper "Socioeconomic Inequalities in Mortality After Age 67: The Contribution of Psychological Factors" has been accepted for publication in a special issue of Frontiers of Psychology om «Psycho-Behavioral Factors and Longevity». Findings add to the interdisciplinary field of socioeconomic inequalities in elderly mortality and underline the specific importance of structural conditions (wealth) and the continued importance of primary control capacity for longevity also after age 67. During 2022 a post doc has been recruited to the project and the team has presented preliminary findings at an invited symposium at the 26th NKG in 2022. This included results from a study mapping transitions in later life (i.e., work exit, own and partner’s health limitations, loss of partner and adult child). The resulting submitted article, currently under review, aims at investigating whether the patterns of these events vary by gender and socio-economic position (education, wealth).
The TRILL project addresses the impact of later life transitions on opportunities for ageing well. Sustaining an ageing population calls for increased focus on prolonging good health and wellbeing across the whole life span, including old age, and later life transitions transpire as important windows of opportunity for strengthening the possibilities for ageing well through interventions and policies. Ageing is remarkably unequal, even in a comprehensive welfare state like Norway, and requires attention to key stratifying factors, gender and socioeconomic position (SEP), which are core dimensions in TRILL. The project builds on the lifecourse approach, which strengths are the emphasis on change over time, thereby highlighting possibilities for growth and adaption also in old age, and the importance of significant others (linked lives) and local context in shaping individual life courses. By using theoretical concepts of differential capability and resilience, the project does justice to the substantial heterogeneity among older people, in particular among those with low SEP. Data from two large longitudinal studies (NorLAG, the Tromsø study), combined with register information and qualitative data, enable the disentangling of potentially vulnerable transitions in later life; analyses of the differential effects of transitions on wellbeing and functioning; and assessment of how some older people manage later life transitions well despite low SEP (resilience). TRILL is a collaboration between NOVA OsloMet, the National Institute of Public Health and three leading institutes for ageing research in Europe. By bringing together scholars from different disciplines, the project will contribute to new knowledge at the intersection between health promotion, ageing well and social inequalities. The project will also include a stakeholder group, including representatives from different levels of policymaking, as well as older people themselves.
