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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Self-rated current and future health independently predict subsequent mortality in an aging population | | Author(s) | Constance Wang, William A Satariano |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, vol 62A, no 12, December 2007 |
| Pages | pp 1428-1434 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Health [elderly] ; Death rate [statistics] ; Correlation ; Longitudinal surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Self-rated current health is an independent, robust predictor of subsequent mortality in older people. While it has been hypothesised that individuals likely take into account their future health when reporting their current health, few investigations have measured and examined self-rated future health in relation to mortality. This study investigates the effect of three self-rated health measures on 10-year mortality in 2091 men and women in an ageing cohort in California, the Study of Physical Performance and Age-related Changes in Sonomans (SPPARCS): self-rated current health; self-rated future health (1 year in the future); and a combined measure of current and future health. Vital status at 10-year follow-up was the outcome. Compared to those reporting their future health as better or the same, participants reporting their future health as worse or unknown experienced elevated 10-year morality, after adjustment for self-rated current health and other relevant covariates. The combined measure of current and future health also contributed important information. Compared to the referent (the best combination, current health excellent/good and future health batter/same), participants reporting the worst combination (fair/poor current health and worse/unknown future health) experienced the highest level 10-year mortality in the cohort. Self-rated future health is an independent, robust predictor of mortality. It is as predictive of subsequent mortality in older people as the standard measure of self-rated current health. Furthermore, a measure that combines self-reports of current health with future health was more useful in the identification of older people with the highest mortality rates. Thus, the combined measure of current and future health may be most useful in practice, in distinguishing the differential mortality rates for those reporting fair or poor self-rated current overall health. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-080305211 A |
| Classmark | CC: S5: 49: 3J: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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