Graduate students (Masters or PhD) enrolled at Canadian universities who wish to obtain the CLSA data for the sole purpose of their thesis, and postdoctoral or clinical fellows (limit 1 waiver per fellow) who wish to obtain the CLSA data for the sole purpose of their postdoctoral project, may request a fee waiver. This fee waiver only applies to alphanumeric data. Any additional data requested, such as images and raw data, have associated fees. The trainee fee waiver cannot be applied to CIHR catalyst grant applications. Canadian trainees working outside Canada but funded through a Canadian source are also eligible for a fee waiver.

Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to some of the most common queries about the CLSA.

What HBHA data are available?

As of October 2026, baseline HBHA alphanumeric data are available, including stool microbiome profiles, MRI-derived data including measures of global and regional brain volumes and cortical thicknesses; volume of white matter hyperintense lesions, and presence and location of radiologic markers of cerebrovascular disease and neurodegeneration, and three cognitive tasks from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). MRI image files, and derived MRI measures including cerebral blood flow through arterial spin labelling, brain iron accumulation through quantitative susceptibility mapping, and measures of microstructural white matter changes through diffusion imaging and myelin water imaging are not available at this time.

Are there additional fees to access the HBHA data?

Researchers must submit new applications to access HBHA data. The standard CLSA data access fee is $4,000 for researchers within Canada, and $10,000 USD for researchers outside Canada. Depending on the data requested as part of the application, additional fees apply for access to image files, raw data and datasets that require more complex customization.

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