Authors: Luigi Ferrucci Angela Turchi Stefano Fumagalli Mauro Di Bari Gabriella Silvestrini Simona Zacchei Alessandra Nesti Lorenza Magherini Francesca Tarantini Riccardo Pini Enrico Antonini Giulio Masotti Niccolö Marchionni
Publish Date: 2013/07/25
Volume: 15, Issue: 4, Pages: 310-314
Abstract
Background and aims It is acknowledged that in spite of their generally worse health women live longer than men However whether women also enjoy longer disabilityfree lives is still unclear Using data from a representative Italian cohort followed for 6 years this study aimed at estimating differences between men and women in the age of disability onset and in total survival Methods In 1989 651 persons aged ≥65 years were interviewed and their medical status was assessed by a geriatrician In 1995 the time of onset of disability was reconstructed by reinterviewing 392 survivors and collecting proxy information for 201 subjects who had died No information was available for 58 subjects who refused to be reinterviewed or were lost to followup Data on changes in functional status were also collected by proxy interview for 34 additional persons who had died during the followup period although they had not been originally interviewed at baseline Results Of the 235 deaths 113 were men and 122 were women On average the age at death was 35 years higher among women than among men However the age at onset of disability was similar in the two sexes In survival analysis in which age was the time variable women were as likely as men to develop disability but significantly less likely to die over the followup period Conclusions Compared with men women experience longer disability before death This may be due to sexrelated differences in the lifetime prevalence of lethal vs disabling diseases
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