Overview

Aging and Societal Development (AGE) was constituted in Autumn 1987 as an interdisciplinary research group at the former Academy of Sciences and Technology in Berlin. From 1994 to 1999 it was run by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. The research group's aim was to contribute to gerontological research by examining the present and the future of aging from multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. To achieve this, two interconnected projects were developed in 1988 and were started in 1989.

The first project, a volume on the future of aging and societal development, was completed in 1991. Its 28 original articles were written in collaboration with more than 25 external authors, and link results of gerontological research with practical questions of aging. The book was first published in 1992 as a research report of the Academy of Sciences and Technology in Berlin, and a second edition was published in 1994 in the form of a gerontological textbook (P. B. Baltes & J. Mittelstraß [Hrsg.] [1992]. Zukunft des Alterns und gesellschaftliche Entwicklung [Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Forschungsbericht 5]. Berlin: de Gruyter; P. B. Baltes, J. Mittelstraß & U. M. Staudinger [Hrsg.] [1994]. Alter und Altern: Ein interdisziplinärer Studientext zur Gerontologie. Berlin: de Gruyter).

The second project, the Berlin Aging Study (BASE), was initiated in 1989 in collaboration with institutes and research centers of the Department of Psychiatry at the Benjamin Franklin School of Medicine (Free University Berlin), the Virchow-Clinic of the Humboldt University Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Since 1992, the Berlin Aging Study has formed the research group's central focus. The Berlin Aging Study was sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Family, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth, and was also financially supported by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the participating research groups and institutes.

Four disciplines are involved in BASE, internal medicine/geriatrics, psychiatry, psychology, and sociology/social policy. The study is directed by a steering committee consisting of Prof. Dr. P. B. Baltes (director of the BASE Psychology Unit, Max Planck Institute for Human Devolopment), Prof. Dr. H. Helmchen (director of the BASE Psychiatry Unit, Department of Psychiatry at the Benjamin Franklin School of Medicine, Free University Berlin), Prof. Dr. K. U. Mayer (director of the BASE Sociology/Social Policy Unit, Max Planck Institute for Human Development), and Prof. Dr. E. Steinhagen-Thiessen (director of the BASE Internal Medicine/Geriatrics Unit, Virchow-Clinic of the Humboldt University Berlin). The BASE project group consists of more than 40 scientists assigned to four research units.

Distinctive features of BASE are the multi- and interdisciplinary nature of the assessments, the focus on the very old, and the representativeness of the sample of (West) Berliners, which is equally stratified by age and sex. Research questions, assessments, and data analyses are guided by four theoretical orientations:

1. differential aging,
2. continuity and discontinuity of aging,
3. range and limits of plasticity and reserve capacity, and
4. aging as a systemic phenomenon.

The data collected cross-sectionally and longitudinally aimed at

1. assessing age differences and processes of aging,
2. determining interindividual differences in physical and psychological functioning as well as in social life conditions, and estimating stability and change in these areas, and
3. testing causal hypotheses about determinants of aging and mortality.

The core sample of the study consists of 516 subjects aged from 70 to over 100 years old. Women and men of six age/cohort groups (70-74, 75-79, 80-84, 85-89, 90-94, 95 years and over) are equally represented with 43 persons in each cell defined by age/cohort and gender. The core sample was derived from a larger initial sample of 1,908 women and men aged from 70 to over 100 who were approached and asked to take part in BASE in the first data collection (main study, 1990-1993). 1,219 (64%) took part in a Short Initial Assessment and 928 (49%) participated in an on average 90-minute multidisciplinary Intake Assessment, which provided basic information for all the disciplines involved in the study. Of these, 516 persons took part in the Intensive Protocol consisting of 13 further sessions on medical, psychiatric, psychological, social, economic and sociopolitical research questions. Each of these sessions lasted approximately 90 minutes.

After 1993, BASE was expanded to a longitudinal study, and the 516 participants of the core sample were examined at three additional measurement occasions. A short interim follow-up was conducted in 1993/94 consisting of a repetition of the one-session multidisciplinary Intake Assessment. 431 of the 516 members of the BASE core sample had survived at this time. Of these, 361 persons (84%) took part in the second data collection.

In 1995/96 and in 1997/98 two further intensive data collections were carried out. Compared to the assessments in the main study, these Intensive Protocols were reduced to six sessions consisting of a repetition of the multidisciplinary Intake Assessment and five additional sessions on the longitudinal research questions of the four BASE units. At the first repetition of the Intensive Protocol (1995/96), 313 members of the core sample (N = 516) were still alive. Of these, 244 persons (78%) took part again in the repetition of the one-session multidisciplinary Intake Assessment, and 206 persons (66%) completed all six sessions of the reduced Intensive Protocol. At the second repetition of the Intensive Protocol (1997/98), 239 participants (46%) had survived. Of these, 164 persons (69%) participated in the multidisciplinary Intake Assessment once more, and 132 (55%) completed the whole reduced Intensive Protocol again.

Cross-sectional results of the main study have been presented in two extensive monographs (Baltes, P. B., & Mayer, K. U. [Eds.] [1999]. The Berlin Aging Study: Aging from 70 to 100. New York: Cambridge University Press; Mayer, K. U., & Baltes, P. B. [Hrsg.] [1996]. Die Berliner Altersstudie. Berlin: Akademie Verlag). Since 1991 there have been more than 270 publications on BASE findings in the form of books, book chapters, or journal articles, and over 520 conference presentations. In 1999, a package of manuscripts describing the first important longitudinal findings of all four BASE research units was submitted to an international gerontological journal. A detailed overview of publications can be found consulting the internet pages of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development at the URL http://www.base-berlin.mpg.de/Publications.html.

The work of the interdisciplinary research group Aging and Societal Development ended in June 1999. However, the BASE project group will continue to exist, and the scientists of the four research units will continue collaborating and publishing BASE findings.