Background

Although several studies have demonstrated the associations between lifetime cumulative adversity and late-life physical health, many of them were conducted at a single time point and examined events that occurred in childhood only. Less is known about the effect of lifelong adversity on the aging process over time. This study aimed to investigate the impact of cumulative adversity on the accelerated deterioration in health over time - mobility limitation and self-rated state of health in old age.

Methods

This study provides a 14-year, 6-time-point follow-up on a representative sample of Europeans using the SHARE Project - longitudinal survey panel. The sample included a total of 7195 respondents aged 65 and older from nine countries in Europe. The outcome measurements were the number of mobility limitations and self-rated health – trajectories along 6 measurements. The independent variable was Lifetime Cumulative Adversity, and the analyses included also control variables – age, gender, socioeconomic status, depression, and country.

Results

Time-based Latent Growth Curve Modeling has demonstrated that the effects of Lifetime Cumulative Adversity were significant on both health measures, by means of the intercepts and the slopes: Greater experience of adversities correlated with a higher physical health impairment at baseline and a higher decline along time. The effects of self-rated health were weaker than the effects of mobility limitations.

Conclusions

Given that the populations of numerous countries are rapidly aging, understanding the risk factors associated with health deterioration is important, especially for policymakers and medical health care experts, to raise awareness of the relationship between lifelong adversity and health decline and to build preventive interventions to deal with these consequences.

中文翻译：

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终生累积逆境和老年身体健康恶化：来自十四年纵向研究的证据

背景

尽管几项研究已经证明了终生累积逆境与晚年身体健康之间的关联，但其中许多研究是在单一时间点进行的，并且只检查了儿童时期发生的事件。随着时间的推移，人们对终生逆境对衰老过程的影响知之甚少。本研究旨在调查累积逆境对健康随时间加速恶化的影响——行动受限和老年时的自评健康状况。

方法

本研究使用 SHARE 项目 - 纵向调查小组对欧洲人的代表性样本进行了 14 年、6 个时间点的随访。样本包括来自欧洲九个国家的 7195 名 65 岁及以上的受访者。结果测量是活动受限的数量和自评健康 - 沿着 6 次测量的轨迹。自变量是终生累积逆境，分析还包括控制变量——年龄、性别、社会经济地位、抑郁症和国家。

结果

基于时间的潜在增长曲线模型已经证明，通过截距和斜率，终生累积逆境对两种健康指标的影响都显着：逆境经历越多，基线时身体健康受损程度越高，下降幅度越大。时间。自评健康的影响弱于行动不便的影响。

结论

鉴于许多国家的人口正在迅速老龄化，了解与健康恶化相关的风险因素很重要，特别是对于政策制定者和医疗保健专家而言，以提高对终身逆境与健康衰退之间关系的认识，并制定预防干预措施来应对有这些后果。