Genetic array data from the Northern Ireland COhort for the Longitudinal study of Ageing (NICOLA)

Northern Ireland’s largest national population cohort over 50 years of age, with a focus on the collection of longitudinal data including computer-assisted personal interviews, self-completed questionnaires and in-person health assessments takes form as the Northern Ireland COhort for the Longitudinal study of Ageing (NICOLA). Data from 8,283 individuals over 50 years of age was collected from individuals within NICOLA’s first wave of data collection for this cohort. Together, the data collected aims to help researchers explore how social, economic, health, lifestyle, and biological factors influence healthy ageing. NICOLA places a strong emphasis on molecular biomarkers, with a subset of 3,471 participants (44%) undergoing health assessments at wave 1, including the collection of blood samples specifically for this analysis. Objectives : Using blood-derived DNA collected from individuals within NICOLA, genetic data was generated to enable research projects associated with rich cross-sectional and longitudinal data within NICOLA to explore genetic connections to the health, lifestyle, environment and financial situations of people as they grow older. Data description: Genetic data was generated using the Illumina Infinium CoreExome-24 array (Illumina, USA) and is available for 2,978 NICOLA participants with 551,839 directly genotyped and 18,148,478 imputed single nucleotide polymorphisms following initial quality control.