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Predictors of elderly mortality:health status, socioeconomic characteristics and social determinants of health
Author(s) -
Mete Cem
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.892
Subject(s) - socioeconomic status , explanatory power , predictive power , social determinants of health , demography , gerontology , index (typography) , psychology , environmental health , medicine , public health , sociology , population , philosophy , nursing , epistemology , world wide web , computer science
This paper uses longitudinal survey data from Taiwan to investigate the predictors of elderly mortality. The empirical analysis confirms a relationship between socioeconomic characteristics and mortality, but this relationship weakens considerably when estimates are conditional on the health status at the time of the first wave survey. In terms of predictive power, the models with an activities of daily living index fare better (as opposed to models with self‐evaluated health or self‐reported illnesses). Having said that there is a payoff to the consideration of self‐evaluated health jointly with other ‘objective’ health indicators. Other findings include a strong association between life satisfaction and survival, which prevails even after controlling for other explanatory variables. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.