Abstract
This chapter presents measurement and methodological issues regarding four social factors that are important in epidemiologic research on aging. These factors are socioeconomic status (income, education and occupation), living arrangement, caregiving status and widowhood. They were selected because they influence health outcomes in older adults. These factors may be dynamic over the life course, particularly during old age, which has implications for their measurement, study design, and interpretation of associations with health outcomes. In this chapter we also reviewed five general measurement and methodological issues that are common to these factors: consideration of the factor from a life-course perspective, cohort effects, influence of prior health status, changes in the factor over time, and choice of comparison groups. For each factor, we present data to illustrate its importance in epidemiologic studies of older populations, describe different approaches to its measurement and their advantages and limitations, summarize its associations with health outcomes, and discuss implications of measurement and methodological decisions. We also address specific methodologic issues such as study design, sampling, and confounding that are unique to individual factors.
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Abbreviations
- ADL:
-
Activities of Daily Living
- IADL:
-
Instrumental Activities of Daily Living
- Il-6:
-
Interleukin-6
- LSOA:
-
Longitudinal Study of Aging
- SES:
-
Socioeconomic Status
- SOF:
-
Study of Osteoporotic Fractures
- US:
-
United States
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Fredman, L., Lyons, J. (2012). Measurement of Social Factors in Aging Research. In: Newman, A., Cauley, J. (eds) The Epidemiology of Aging. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5061-6_9
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