Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS)
VACS consists of five electronic health record (EHR)-based cohorts of veterans in the United States of America. These include the VACS-National, which includes all veterans receiving care in the Veterans Affairs (VA) system (around 13.5 million), the VACS-HIV, which is a cohort of more than 60,000 veterans with a diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), with two survey and biomarker sub-cohorts within this larger cohort, and finally, the MASH cohort, which explores medications, alcohol, and substance use in 534 individuals diagnosed with HIV.
Study design
Registry, Cohort - open, Cohort - clinical
Number of participants at first data collection
~13500000 (participants)
Recruitment is ongoing
Age at first data collection
Varied (participants)
Participant year of birth
Varied (participants)
Participant sex
All
Representative sample at baseline?
All veterans receiving care in the Veterans Affairs system in the United States of America.
Sample features
Country
Year of first data collection
1997
Primary Institutions
Yale University
Links
medicine.yale.edu/internal-medicine/vacs/
vacsp.research.va.gov/CSPEC/Studies/INVESTD-R/Veteran-Aging-Cohort-Study.asp
Profile paper DOI
Funders
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Veterans Health Administration (VHA)
Ongoing?
Yes
Data types collected
- Interview – phone
- Physical or biological assessment (e.g. blood, saliva, gait, grip strength, anthropometry)
- Secondary data
- Self-report questionnaire – unspecified
- Interviews or focus groups
- None
- Healthcare data
- Mortality data
- Other government data
- Tax, income & benefit data
Engagement
Keywords
Consortia and dataset groups
