Normal Human Aging: The Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging

The two outstanding longitudinal studies in the United States are the Framingham Study of Cardiovascular Disease and the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA). The latter deserves to be better known. Hopefully, this volume, a bargain at $18, will serve as an introduction to the BLSA. Started in 1958 with a group of volunteers, the BLSA admittedly lacks the breadth one would like to see in an epidemiologic study. The volunteers were all male (females were not admitted until 1978) and mostly middle-class and professional, and thus the study has a restricted socioeconomic base. However, with this restricted study population, the BLSA has served as a useful antidote to the many studies that have been based on such skewed samples as persons in nursing homes or old patients from hospitals mostly serving the indigent. It is apparent that only a select group would have volunteered for this kind of study