STAGE

STAGE is an ambitious European research project aiming to demonstrate the importance and feasibility of a life-course approach to prevent accelerated ageing, which is considered caused by the accumulation of multi-morbidity. The project seeks to integrate the generated scientific knowledge into transferable, person-centred solutions for early diagnosis, screening, treatment and long-term management of age-related conditions, addressing the health and demographic challenges faced by European societies.

By capitalising on European collaborations of longitudinal cohorts and biobanks spanning the entire life-course, STAGE combines exposome and disease network trajectory analysis with the biology of ageing to explore how individuals develop multi-morbidity over time. The project integrates environmental, epidemiological and biological approaches with AI-powered person-centred solutions, cohort-based clinical studies, and a FAIR life-course health and geospatial data portal. Evidence-based methods will translate into person-centred prevention and care interventions co-designed with citizens, patients, healthcare providers, SMEs and policymakers in longitudinal cohorts in Finland and Germany.

Ab.Acus plays a central role in the development and deployment of the project’s digital infrastructure. As co-lead of a multi-stakeholder co-creation working group bringing together clinicians, technologists, citizens, epidemiologists and ethics experts, Ab.Acus contributes to the continuous gathering of functional, clinical and ethical requirements for the AI-assisted tools developed within the project. Ab.Acus is then responsible for designing and developing a mobile application for passive and active monitoring of older adults’ lifestyle, collecting data from phone sensors to infer mobility habits, while actively prompting voluntary activities such as questionnaires on wellbeing and diet, cognitive exercises and data log tasks to capture mental and cognitive states. The collected data feeds directly into the AI prevention models and decision support system developed within the project. The application is being deployed to participants of the Northern Finland Birth Cohorts (NFBC) 1966 study and is estimated to reach over 7,000 members of one of Europe’s most established longitudinal clinical cohorts.

STAGE represents a significant step forward in the fight against the growing burden of age-related multi-morbidity in Europe. By combining rigorous life-course science with AI-powered digital tools and real-world clinical deployment, the project will generate actionable, person-centred solutions that can be transferred across healthcare systems — ultimately improving quality of life, enhancing resilience, and supporting healthier ageing for European citizens.