Research on Aging最新文献

As populations age, supporting longer working lives becomes increasingly important. We investigate the relationships between working conditions, pre-retirement psychological well-being, and retirement timing using survey and register data on 3,261 Finnish employees who retired between 2019 and 2021. Rather than early retirement, our focus is to examine retirement at the statutory age versus retirement postponed by at least one year. Our results show that job autonomy and good leadership are associated with better psychological well-being, while psychosocial job demands are linked to poorer well-being. Poor well-being increases the likelihood of earlier retirement. Schedule flexibility and job autonomy reduce the risk of earlier retirement, whereas physical and psychosocial demands decrease the likelihood of later retirement - psychosocial demands also indirectly through their impact on well-being. Well-being mediates the effect of poor self-rated health on retirement. These results underscore the importance of working conditions and well-being in shaping retirement behavior.

The Everyday Ageism Scale is a self-report measure of ageism in older adults. To our knowledge, this scale has yet to undergo item response theory (IRT) analysis to evaluate its item-level properties. Our objective was to evaluate its reliability, structural validity, and item functioning. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis and IRT using data collected from 486 older adults. The Everyday Ageism Scale demonstrated acceptable McDonald's omega coefficients and good model fit with its previously identified three-factor structure. Our findings also revealed items that provided the highest level of measurement precision and adequately/inadequately differentiated between respondents reporting varying levels of ageism. The Everyday Ageism Scale is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing ageism among North American older adults, though items 8-10 may require refinement to improve their discriminatory and predictive power. Future investigations are needed to establish cross-cultural validation.

Population aging and increasing retirement rates are reshaping physical activity (PA) and health among older adults worldwide. Using the China General Social Survey data (CGSS), this study applies a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal impact of retirement on PA among Chinese older adults. We find that retirement significantly increases PA frequency. The effect is amplified by higher income and better health, but is weakened by psychological stress. Causal forest analysis reveals pronounced heterogeneity: income consistently emerges as the most influential moderator, while the importance of social participation, intergenerational caregiving, and urban-rural residency rises notably once provincial clustering is considered. Regional disparities also persist, with stronger effects in the eastern provinces, contrasted by more mixed and uneven patterns in central and western China. These findings highlight heterogeneous aging trajectories, showing that retirement's impact on PA is context-specific and requires locally adaptive approaches.

This study examined how older women's friendships were intertwined with their opposite-sex romantic partners, and their friendships, via interviews using a constructivist, grounded theory approach. Participants (N = 19) were women from the Northeastern United States, had at least some college, and all were non-Hispanic White. Theoretical coding led to two main themes: Friendship Level: Couple Versus Individual and Conflicts and Differences: Gendered Dynamics. Within Friendship Level, couple activities such as vacations and dinners were mentioned as key activities, along with the women's role in crafting couples' friendships. Reasons why friendships remained separate were also discussed. For Conflicts and Differences, women talked about how they had more friends than their romantic partners and that their romantic partners' friendships were largely work-based. Women also discussed instances in which a romantic partner misbehaved. These findings have implications for how romantic partners navigate friendships together.

Research on dementia care partners often emphasizes the dyadic relationship, overlooking broader social networks that shape care partners' well-being and resilience. This study examines how social network composition and quality influence care partner outcomes. We conducted ego-centric social network structured interviews with 179 unpaid care partners of individuals living with dementia. We used regression models to test our hypothesis, with hierarchical models incorporating covariates followed by network features. Findings indicate participants who reported greater network quality also reported larger social networks and greater network demographic similarity, with older participants also reporting greater similarity. Those who showed greater network quality and perceptual affinity reported enhanced well-being and resilience and lower burden, with care partner tenure also positively related to resilience. As such, higher-quality networks are associated with larger and more demographic similarity. Further research should explore which dimensions of perceptual affinity most strongly influence care partner outcomes.

This study examines the relationship between spousal education and hypertension risk among older couples. Using data from the National Social Life, Health & Aging Project (NSHAP) Round 3 (2015-2016), we analyzed 1,214 couples aged 50 and older. Hypertension was assessed through biological and self-reported measures. Spousal education was categorized by college degree attainment. The Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model (APIMeM) was used to examine the mediating roles of economic resources and health behaviors. Results showed that a wife's college degree was associated with lower hypertension risk for both spouses, whereas a husband's college degree showed no significant association. Mediation analysis revealed that health behaviors, but not economic resources, partially explained this relationship. Findings suggest that a wife's education plays a greater role in a couple's hypertension risk than a husband's, emphasizing the need for interventions targeting couples with a lower-educated wife to improve cardiovascular health in older adults.

Millions worldwide suffer from sleep problems and dementia, yet effective treatments and predictions remain elusive. As populations age, these issues become increasingly critical for public health. While strong associations between sleep quality, cognitive functioning, and mortality are well-documented, the mechanisms underlying sleep's role in cognitive status and life expectancy (LE) across different cognitive states remain unclear. This study used multistate life tables and data from the Health and Retirement Study (2002-2020, N = 20,683), to quantify long-term associations between sleep and cognition/mortality for older adults. Our results show that poorer sleep quality is linked to 1.0 to 2.4 fewer years of total LE and LE with normal cognition for men and women. This study highlights the complex interplay between sleep, cognitive aging, and gender and underscores the importance of addressing sleep issues to promote healthy cognitive aging with important implications for public health policies and interventions targeting cognitive decline and dementia.

This study examines life courses and retirement adjustment in the Netherlands. Gender-split latent class analyses identify four distinct trajectories among men and women, covering life events in work, family, health, care, and volunteering. The largest trajectories indicate traditional male and female life courses. Compared to those with traditional male trajectories, men with lifelong volunteering adjust better to retirement, financially, socially, and psychologically. Despite family and health issues, men making careers through mobility miss the prestige of work less, but men with late-career mobility are similar to the reference group. Women combining work with care and volunteering adjust better to retirement, missing work-related income, prestige, and role fulfillment less, while work-oriented carers do not differ from women with traditional female trajectories. However, mothers re-entering employment after childcare face financial challenges in retirement. These findings highlight gender differences in life courses and support the dynamic resource perspective on retirement adjustment.

Despite frequent familial visits, loneliness remains high among long-term care (LTC) residents. Existing research on LTC visitation fails to distinguish care coordination from social visitation. These forms of interaction may have distinct barriers of engagement and impacts on residents. This study aimed to investigate barriers of care coordination versus social visitation. Participants were adults (N = 175) with a close friend or relative residing in a LTC facility. Participants were recruited via ResearchMatch and completed an online survey regarding their visitation in LTC facilities and relationship with the resident. Overall, care coordination and social visitation were distinct forms of visitation with contrasting predictors. Participants involved in LTC choice were significantly more involved in care coordination versus social visitation. Participants who were primary caregivers and closer to the LTC resident demonstrated significantly greater care coordination and social visitation. These findings provide preliminary evidence there are distinct barriers for care coordination versus social visitation.

Neighborhood socioeconomic status is linked to risk of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, but studies utilizing latent variable methods to clarify how built and social environment resources may relate to cognitive outcomes are limited. We applied exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to data from the 2010 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (N = 17,642) to derive built and social environment resource factors and then examined associations with memory using structural equation modeling. Results revealed greater built and social environment resources were associated with better memory performance. Effects were modified by race/ethnicity such that environmental resource factors were more robustly associated with memory among non-Latino White compared to non-Latino Black and Latino participants. Results highlight that the presence of built and social environmental resources may support memory functioning, but disparities in the distribution of these resources must be addressed to ensure benefits are conferred equally across racial/ethnic groups.