Subjective health of older population

Owing to the decline in fertility, mortality, and improvement in longevity, the number of the older persons is increasing in India. To successfully address the challenges of the rapidly growing older population, it is essential to have an understanding of wellbeing of the older population. In this study, we examine the socio-demographic differentials with respect to health status, functional disability, and quality of life of the older population in India. The study uses the data from the World Health Organization sponsored “Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE-INDIA)” of 2007. This pioneering survey gathered information from 6560 persons (aged 50 years and over) from six Indian states. All the three indicators of wellbeing shows that wellbeing is better for males than females, and that wellbeing deteriorates with increasing age. Wellbeing is positively associated with higher levels of education and economic status. This study shows that the outcome indicators vary significantly by socio-demographic characteristics. Any programme aimed at improving the wellbeing of the older population should be targeted to those who are poor, the aged, female, and uneducated. Social security measures, including pensions and health insurance are also crucial in ensuring the quality of life and wellbeing of the older population in India.

Thailand ageing society has been occurred since 2005, health and well-being of the elderly is a crucial concerned. Number of research reveals that critical factors effected the elderly depression including physical health, demographic and socio-economic of the elderly and religious practices. This study aims to examine whether the varying depression in older population is determined by religious, it’s expect that religious activities will have a negative relationship with depression variability. The study based on a longitudinal data set, 636 elderly aged sixty and over, who were followed up since 2005 thru 2011. The depression is measured through Thai EURO-D scale. Our findings support that religion acts as a protection mechanism for the elderly. In addition, financial satisfaction has significant impacts on improvement, deterioration, healthy or chronic depression status of the elderly. Female are more likely than male elderly to get the depression, and the depression increased with the elderly’s age too. This study suggests that not only roles of the religion and financial security that need to be seriously enhanced, but also the depression prevention mechanism needs to taken into account the sex and age of the elderly.

We examined the economic wellbeing of the Korean elderly and their reliance on public and private transfers. Under-developed public transfer programs are at the center of heated political debates, and better understanding of economic wellbeing and the relation between public and private transfers will provide further insights in evaluating policy reform proposals under consideration. Using panel data from three waves of Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA), we found that the elderly poverty rate between 2006 and 2008 decreased significantly but was still significantly higher than other OECD countries. This poverty reduction did not benefit individuals who were older, less educated, living alone, living in rural areas, or in poor health. We found that low income elderly who co-reside depend almost completely on the income of their children or other household members. Public transfers account for no more than a third of income for low-income elderly, while private transfers accounted for half.

With ageing development the need for thorough analysis of this process increases, especially for Spain, because in general Spain may be considered as rather “old” country. The Valencian Community (the VC) is the fourth country’s region in terms of population size and consists of three parts: Alicante, Castellon and Valencia having different population size and demographic indicators.

The paper aims to make a comparative analysis of ageing development in the regions of the VC since the beginning of the 1990s.

Changes in age structure by major age groups will be considered, and a number of ageing characteristics will be computed for the VC and its regions. Ageing indicators for the VC will be compared with those for Spain as a whole. To characterize the situation in regard to population ageing, conventional measures and quantitative characteristics that take account of remaining years of life will be examined.

The paper is based on censuses and micro-data on vital events.

The study is revealing similarities and diversities in dynamics of ageing indicators for the VC and Spain, and inside the VC. Results of the study may contribute to the management, administration and planning of social programmes related to population ageing.

In the past three decades there has been a remarkable increase in literature pertaining to migration to and from as well as within South-East Asia. Researchers from several social science disciplines have identified regional patterns of population movements. The South Asian sub-continent has long experienced virtually uninterrupted demographic mobility which was reflected in the almost unchecked transfer of population and resultant population redistribution in a number of places. Such population mobility was due to both environmental and socio-economic causes. India, one of the most important countries in south Asia, has received number of international migrants since Independence. The reasons are partly historical and partly economic and political. Of the many reasons for immigration into the country, most studies have ignored one important demographic dimension of these immigrants, which pertains to age in terms of aging characteristics of the migrants.

While the relationship between self-rated health and mortality is well established in industrialized country settings, there is little evidence from developing countries. This study seeks to further our understanding of the relationship between self-rated health and mortality in a developing country, through the use of a unique longitudinal dataset from Matlab, Bangladesh. Using panel data from two rounds of the Matlab Health and Socioeconomic Survey and the Matlab Health and Demographic Surveillance System, the study first examines correlates of self-reported health, then the relationship between self-reported health and mortality using logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards analyses. To the extent that people are aware of their health condition regardless of whether they have access to health care, this study is expected to find that self-rated health is a good predictor of subsequent mortality and morbidity. However, the high prevalence of infectious diseases and injuries may mean that previous self-rated health status have little relations to subsequent mortality. The results from this study will provide new insights to a scarcely explored topic on the relationship between self-rated health, mortality, and functional disability in a low-income setting.

The aim of this study is to identify the relation between mental and physical subjective and physical health measures across countries. Self-reported health measures are commonly used in ageing surveys, although its problems with respect to the accuracy of self-reported measures are known. These may be explained by cross-cultural differences in response styles. Recent ageing surveys are used to compare objective and subjective health (both mental and physical) for more than 20 countries all over the world. Here, samples of those aged 50 and above were asked about self-reported physical and mental health.
Each respondent had to assess ones general health and ones perceived memory function. Additionally, each interviewee was visited by health personnel, who measured grip strength, lung function and blood pressure as well as BMI and the waist-hip-ratio. Finally, cognitive performance tests, including memory tests, were conducted.

We examine the social network (SN) – self-rated health (SRH) association for groups defined by age, sex and partnership, using survey data for older Australians. Models predict fair/poor SRH vs good/very good/excellent. Explanatory variables cover 3 network dimensions (social engagement (SE)/instrumental support (IS)/emotional support (ES)), distinguishing between family-, friend- and group-based networks. Sociodemographics, disability, mental health and subjective e(x) are included. SE is not associated with SRH except in the presence of an interaction between disability and SE. Only for unpartnered is more SE(family) associated with better SRH, and this is tempered by a reversed effect at higher levels of disability. This reversed effect also occurs more widely. For the oldest group, more SE(friends) is associated with worse SRH, although this is reduced at higher levels of disability. We find a ‘beneficial’ effect of group activity for most groups. IS(family) is associated with better SRH for males and those aged 60-69 but with poorer SRH for those aged 50-59. ES(friends) is associated with better SRH for males only. IS(friends) and ES(family) are not associated with SRH. These varying associations among demographic groups has implications for strategies and policies to support health and wellbeing in later life.

The unprecedented upsurge in human longevity in the 20th century has increased the number of older persons all over the world, which in turn resulted in the phenomenon of population ageing, a direct outcome of demographic transition. Within the context of India, the process of ageing is more widely apparent in the South than the northern States. In the case of Kerala, one out of 10 persons was elderly and this proportion is projected to become one out of four by the middle of this century.
This paper focuses on the effect of life satisfaction on health of the elderly in Kerala. The study is based on longitudinal studies on elderly in Kerala conducted by Centre for Development Studies. Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed and finally multivariate logistic regression was carried out for the statistical inference. Findings suggest that well-being is higher among males, among Muslims, those living with family, having good health, having no disability and having good IADL. Objective health has no positive effect on the life satisfaction of the elderly, but subjective health has significant effect.

Ageing became a serious issue in almost all developed countries. Ageing of population brings questions regarding economic sustainability and health, social and pension systems maintenance. The article introduces concept of ageing, aged, super aged and (newly) ultra aged society. Additionally, there are presented life expectancy for 65 years old people and median age as other indicators regarding ageing. In selected European countries population has achieved the threshold of 14 % of people in the age 65 years and more and is approaching another limit: 21 %. According to projection, ageing continues fast and this proportion will grow in a short period of time. A new term is proposed in the article – “ultra aged” society, which denotes population with proportion of seniors in the age 65 years and more at the level 28 %. First population reaching this limit would be Japan. In Europe, the oldest populations are Italy, Germany and Sweden.