Unpacking SelfRated Health and Quality of Life in

Authors: Siddhivinayak Hirve Johan H L Oud Somnath Sambhudas Sanjay Juvekar Yulia Blomstedt Stephen Tollman Stig Wall Nawi Ng

Publish Date: 2013/05/22

Volume: 117, Issue: 1, Pages: 105-119

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Abstract

The Study on global AGEing and adult health SAGE aims at improving empirical understanding of the health and wellbeing of older adults in low and middleincome countries A total of 321 adults aged 50 years and older were interviewed in rural Pune district India in 2007 We used Structural Equation Modelling SEM to examine the pathways through which social factors functional disability risk behaviours and chronic disease experience influence selfrated health SRH and quality of life QOL amongst older adults in India Both SRH and QOL worsened with increased age indirect effect and limitations in functional ability direct effect QOL socioeconomic status SES and social networking had no significant effect on SRH Smoking was associated with the presence of at least one chronic illness but this did not have a statistically significant effect on SRH Higher social networking was seen amongst the better educated and those with regular income which in turn positively affected the QOL rating QOL had a direct but statistically not significant effect on SRH In conclusion the indirect effects of age on SRH mediated through functional ability and the effects of SES on QOL mediated through social networking provide new understanding of how age and socioeconomic status affect SRH and QOL By allowing for measurement errors solving for collinearity in predictor variables by integrating them into measurement models and specifying causal dependencies between the underlying latent constructs SEM provides a strong link between theory and empiricsThis paper uses data from the World Health Organization Study on Global AGEing SAGE SAGE is supported by the US National Institute on Aging through Interagency Agreements OGHA 04034785 YA132308CN0020 Y1AG100501 and through a research grant R01AG034479 Health and Demographic Surveillance System Vadu is a member of the International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health INDEPTH Network The analyses and writing of this paper has been financed by the Umeå Centre for Global Health Research Umeå University with support from FAS the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research Grant No 20061512 through its PhD fellowship to the first author We acknowledge the support of Kathy Kahn from INDEPTH Network and Somnath Chatterjee Paul Kowal and Nirmala Naidoo from WHO Geneva for coordinating this multicountry study Thanks are due to Pallavi Lele and the Vadu HDSS team for their quality work and the older adult population of the Vadu Demographic Surveillance Area for their willingness to contribute their knowledge to this study

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