Higher aging satisfaction improves subsequent health outcomes
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Adults with higher aging satisfaction were more likely to have improved health and well-being later in life, according to findings published in JAMA Network Open.
Aging satisfaction involves self-reported beliefs that people have about their own aging. It is impacted by factors such as quality of life, energy, happiness and feelings of usefulness, Julia S. Nakamura, BS, a master’s student in the department of psychology at the University of British Columbia, and colleagues wrote.
“With further research, interventions aimed at improving aging satisfaction may have the potential to enhance a wide range of health and well-being outcomes in our rapidly growing population of older adults,” Nakamura told Healio.
The researchers analyzed data from the Health and Retirement Study, a national, diverse, longitudinal sample of 13,752 U.S. adults aged older than 50 years. Among the participants, the mean age was 65 years; 59% were women and 64% were married.
Nakamura and colleagues evaluated changes in aging satisfaction that occurred during three waves: a prebaseline wave (2008 and 2010), a baseline wave (2012 and 2014) and an outcome wave (2016 and 2018).
The researchers determined how aging satisfaction in the baseline wave was associated with 35 indicators of physical, behavioral and psychosocial health and well-being during the outcome wave. Participants rated their attitudes toward their own aging on a six-point Likert scale in response to eight statements about aging. The researchers accounted for chronic conditions and health behaviors, as well as other outcomes and sociodemographic factors, during the first wave of data collection to mitigate concerns of reverse causality, according to Nakamura.
High vs. low aging satisfaction
Participants who scored the highest in aging satisfaction at baseline had improved physical health, better health behaviors and improved psychosocial well-being after follow-up compared with participants who scored the lowest in aging satisfaction, according to the researchers. Specifically, the researchers reported a 43% reduced risk for mortality (RR = 0.57; 95% CI, 0.46-0.71), a 23% increased likelihood of frequent physical activity (RR = 1.23; 95% CI, 1.12-1.34), higher positive affect (95% CI, 0.44-0.58) and lower loneliness (95% CI, -0.48 to -0.33) than at baseline. Moreover, participants in the highest group of aging satisfaction (compared to the lowest) had higher life satisfaction (95% CI, 0.36-0.55), optimism (95% CI, 0.26-0.4), purpose in life (95% CI, 0.37-0.55), health mastery (95% CI, 0.34-0.53) and financial mastery (95% CI, 0.30-0.44), according to the researchers. In addition, participants in the highest group of aging satisfaction (compared to the lowest) had a lower risk of depression (RR = 0.45; 95% CI, 0.35-0.58), as well as lower depressive symptoms (95% CI, –0.42 to –0.28), hopelessness (95% CI, –0.42 to –0.3), and negative affect (95% CI, –0.49 to –0.36).
Higher aging satisfaction recorded during the second wave of data collection was associated with fewer chronic conditions and fewer sleep problems (RR = 0.77; 95% CI, 0.69-0.86) by the third wave, according to Nakamura.
The researchers reported that all associations between aging satisfaction and subsequent health and well-being outcomes were conditional on prior aging satisfaction. Also, there was little evidence that aging satisfaction was associated with other factors like participants’ contact with children, other family members and friends.
“Making people feel better about aging could potentially produce concrete health and well-being benefits,” Nakamura said. “It is increasingly important that we foster health and well-being in our rapidly aging population, and increasing aging satisfaction is one potential path to doing so.”
Structural ageism
In a related editorial, Becca R. Levy, PhD, a professor of public health and psychology at the Yale Institute for Global Health, discussed what she said was the root cause of the relationship between negative age beliefs and health outcomes: structural ageism.
Research has shown how prevalent structural ageism is in society, including in health care, according to Levy. For example, a Journal of General Internal Medicine study published in 2015 found that 20% of adults aged older than 50 years experienced ageism during medical encounters.
Structural ageism necessitates a reframing of research on aging satisfaction, as “placing the association of negative age beliefs with worse health in the context of structural ageism has several advantages,” Levy wrote.
“First, it provides a basis for recognizing that adverse health conditions in later life may not be entirely owing to aging,” she wrote. “Second, understanding the structural ageism cause of negative age beliefs can facilitate the development of effective interventions to mitigate the negativity of these beliefs, which previous research has shown are malleable. Third, it supports the premise that improvements in the health of older persons could follow from policy innovations that dismantle structural ageism.”
References:
Levy BR. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.47802.
Nakamura JS, et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.47797.
Rogers SE, et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2015;doi:10.1007/s11606-015-3233-6.