 this study will be presented at national and international conferences and be reported in national and international peer-reviewed academic journals. HAGIS will engage with policy makers to inform social, economic and health policy debate on issues relevant to an ageing population. The HAGIS team have established connections with SG and have presented the HAGIS study to the SG at Victoria Quay, Edinburgh, in January 2017. Presentation of preliminary HAGIS pilot study findings to the SG will take place in late 2017. Further news and updates of research publications, events and workshops will be published on the HAGIS website.[@R24]

Over time, the overall research output from HAGIS is anticipated to be comparable with other ageing studies. To date, ELSA and the Gateway to Global Aging have published around 300 and 6000 research articles, respectively.[@R25]

10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018802.supp5

10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018802.supp6

Supplementary Material
======================

###### Reviewer comments

###### Author\'s manuscript

The authors would like to acknowledge support from Ian Deary and Chloe Fawns-Ritchie (University of Edinburgh) in the development of the cognitive assessment, Elizabeth Lemmon (University of Stirling), the HAGIS Steering Group, Richard Suzmann (National Institute of Aging), James Smith (RAND), David Weir (University of Michigan), Ken Langa (University of Michigan) and Sharon Witherspoon (Nuffield Foundation).

There are 14 Scottish Health Boards. NHS Western Isles, NHS Orkney and NHS Shetland were excluded from the sampling frame.

**Contributors:** DB and AR developed the overall research design and gained the funding. ED has been involved in all aspects of the study and wrote the first draft of this manuscript. All authors subsequently contributed and commented on the manuscript and approved the final version.

**Funding:** This project was part-funded by the National Institute of Aging (RAG044535A) in the USA and was also part-funded by the Nuffield Foundation (OPD/42197), but the views