Monongahela Valley Independent Elders Survey (MoVIES): An Overview
The Monongahela Valley Independent Elders Survey (MoVIES Project) was a community study of older adults from 1987 through 2002, in the mid-Monongahela Valley area of Southwestern Pennsylvania. The MoVIES project recruited 1,681 adults, aged 65 years and older, between 1987 and 1989, and followed their progress over the next 15 years.
It was carried out by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh with funding from the National Institute on Aging, a division of the National Institutes of Health (United States Department of Health and Human Services).
The purpose of the MoVIES project was to learn more about the process of aging in the small towns and rural areas of the United States. The researchers were interested both in “normal aging” and in various disorders and disabilities that occur in old age.
These MoVIES participants, or “MoVIES Stars” as we liked to call them, graciously allowed research staff into their homes to conduct interviews. The interviews were repeated approximately every two years for a total of 15 years. They covered a lot of ground, from health, transportation, and use of health services, to pastimes, exercise, and diet, to mood, memory, and medications, and everything in between! The MoVIES Stars were very patient with out staff as they returned every couple of years asking to conduct yet another interview. Some participants were also visited by nurses who carried out a thorough medical history and physical examination and asked even more questions. A smaller number of participants were also interviewed at home by one of the study physicians.
The information provided by the study participants was kept strictly confidential and also anonymous. That is, the responses to our questions were coded as numbers and entered as data into the computer, with no way of identifying the individual from whom the information was obtained. Thus, the researchers were able to examine the responses provided by the whole group and look for patterns and relationships within the data. Over the 15 years, the MoVIES data resulted in about 45 articles published in medical and scientific journals. It is likely that several more will be published as analysis of the data continues.
The MoVIES project was a scientific landmark in many ways. It was one of the first “epidemiological” community studies of a rural American population, which “prospectively” applied repeated measurements and assessments over the years to better understand the process of normal and abnormal aging. Many previous studies were carried out in urban areas, and based on patients receiving care at urban medical centers. While those studies were important and valuable, their results could not be “generalized” and assumed to also be true of small town or rural America.
Some of the most important findings of the MoVIES project were related to the way participants performed on the cognitive tests and puzzles that they were given every couple of years. We found, as expected, that those who were younger and had more education obtained better scores on the tests. Women in MoVIES performed as well or better than men on all the tests. Over the years, as participants performed the same tests over and over, their test scores initially improved with all the practice they were getting. After some years, it appeared that their age caught up with them and they did not do quite as well. However, the older the group became, the more variation there was among them, with some participants doing much better than others. Those participants who seemed to find the tests harder as time went by were often the ones who eventually developed progressive memory disorders.
Another group of findings published from the MoVIES project was about depression. About 10% of the MoVIES participants reported having recently experienced at least five symptoms of depression. These persons were more likely to also report poor health, more medical problems, poor sleep and appetite, and to use more health services in general. Often they had more memory problems as well.
The MoVIES project gathered a lot of information about medications being used by participants. Some of the published articles were reports on the use of both prescription drugs, such as antidepressant drugs and cholesterol-lowering drugs, and also those purchased over the counter, such as sleep aids and vitamins and other “anti-oxidant” products.
The main purpose of this review is to illustrate the kinds of contributions that the MoVIES project has made to the medical profession’s understanding of normal and abnormal aging.
In turn, the achievements of the project are in fact due to the contributions of each and every MoVIES Star who took the time to participate in the study and help the University of Pittsburgh in this very important endeavor.
The MoVIES Project researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, including all of the Monessen-based staff who visited the participants in their homes, take this opportunity to express their gratitude to all the MoVIES Stars and their families who helped make this study a success. They also thank all the physicians, home health agencies, laboratories, hospital medical records departments, and the Mon Valley Community Health Center for their cooperation over the years.
MoVIES Project, Epidemiology Program, 447 Thomas Detre Hall, 3811 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
