Associations between Cardiovascular Diseases and Disability Levels among Elderly Population with the Focus on Five East European Countries

This paper aims to explore the association between two chronic health conditions (heart attack and stroke) and disability among older population (50+) in different welfare regimes with the special focus on East European countries. It is of interest to understand the risk of disability due to heart attack and stroke among older population in the countries where the timing of entrance to the phase of cardiovascular revolution has differed remarkable. The analysis includes 16 European countries that carried out the fourth wave of SHARE (Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement) in 2010-2011. Disability will be measured by using both ADL and IADL instruments combined into three scales (basic, medium, complex) in order to reflect different levels of disability. Odds ratios for two chronic diseases will be calculated in relation to disability levels and logistic regression analysis will be conducted to assess the associations between diseases and disabilities. Model includes demographic (gender, age) and socio-economic variables (the highest level of attained education, partnership status), life-time occurrence of some behavioural aspects such as smoking and alcohol consumption. Cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes are considered the confounding risk factors to heart attack and stroke.