Country: Japan

Study Design: Observational cohort with repeated measurements over time

Participant age range: Adults aged 65 and above

Number of participants at baseline: ~ 110,000–200,000

Year of initial enrollment: 2010

Number of data collection waves: At least 4; data collection ongoing

Measures of well-being:

• Flourishing (multidimensional)

• Optimism

• Purpose / meaning in life / ikigai

• Life satisfaction

• Subjective happiness

• Social support / integration / cohesion

• Prosocial behavior or attitudes

Quantity of well-being measures (e.g., number of constructs, number of times of well-being was assessed:  High

Quality of well-being measures (e.g., were measures reliable and valid in the study population): High

Measures of physical health: 

• Self-rated / questionnaire-based health

• Self-reported medical and medication history

• Measured anthropometrics, e.g., weight

• Biomarkers

• National insurance database (including death)

Access information: This dataset is available to all researchers. Researchers must submit an application to access this data. There are no fees required to access this dataset.

Notable Citation: Okuzono S, Shiba K, Kim E, Shirai K, Kondo N, Fujiwara T, Kondo K, Lomas T, Trudel-Fitzgerald C, Kawachi I & VanderWeele T. (2022) Ikigai and subsequent health and wellbeing among Japanese older adults: longitudinal outcome-wide analysis. Lancet Reg Health West Pac. 2022(21).