Abstract

Background

Self-rated health (SRH) is a good predictor of morbidity and mortality. Extensive research has shown that females generally report poorer SRH than males but still tend to live longer. Previous studies used cross-sectional or pooled data for their analyses while ignoring the dynamic changes in males’ and females’ SRH statuses over time. Furthermore, longitudinal studies, especially those that focus on older adults, typically suffer from the incompleteness of data. As such, the effect of dropout data on the trajectories of SRH is still unknown. Our objective is to examine whether there are any gender differences in the trajectories of SRH statuses in Chinese older adults.

Methods

The trajectories of SRH were estimated using the pattern-mixture model (PMM), a special latent growth model, under non-ignorable dropout data assumption. We analyzed the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) data of 15,613 older adults aged 65 years and above, collected from 2005 to 2014.

Results

The results demonstrated the effect of non-ignorable dropout data assumptions in this study. The previous SRH score was negatively associated with the likelihood of dropping out of the study at the next follow-up survey. Our results showed that both males and females in China perceive their SRH as decreasing over time. A significant gender difference was found in the average SRH score (female SRH was lower than male SRH) in this study. Nonetheless, based on the results obtained using the PMM, there are no gender differences in the trajectories of SRH at baseline as well as in the rate of decline among the total sample. The results also show that males and females respond to SRH predictors similarly, except that current drinking has a more pronounced positive effect on males and healthcare accessibility has a more pronounced positive effect on females.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that missing data have an impact on the trajectory of SRH among Chinese older adults. Under the non-ignorable dropout data assumptions, no gender differences were found in trajectories of SRH among Chinese older adults. Males and females respond to SRH predictors similarly, except for current drinking habit and healthcare accessibility.

Details

Title
Are there gender differences in the trajectories of self-rated health among chinese older adults? an analysis of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS)
Author
Cui, Shichen; Yu, Yushan; Dong, Weizhen; Xu, Tingke; Huang, Yunyun; Zhang, Xiangyang; Chen, Chun
Pages
1-11
Section
Research
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
BioMed Central
e-ISSN
14712318
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2583071882
Copyright
© 2021. This work is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.