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Lookup NU author(s): Dr David Sinclair, Professor Barbara HanrattyORCiD, Professor Fiona MatthewsORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.BACKGROUND: frailty is a condition of reduced function and health due to ageing processes and is associated with a higher risk of falls, hospitalisation, disability and mortality. OBJECTIVE: to determine the relationship between household wealth and neighbourhood deprivation with frailty status, independently of demographic factors, educational attainment and health behaviours. DESIGN: population-based cohort study. SETTING: communities in England. SUBJECTS: in total 17,438 adults aged 50+ from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. METHODS: multilevel mixed-effects ordered logistic regression was used in this study. Frailty was measured using a frailty index. We defined small geographic areas (neighbourhoods) using English Lower layer Super Output Areas. Neighbourhood deprivation was measured by the English Index of Multiple Deprivation, grouped into quintiles. Health behaviours included in this study are smoking and frequency of alcohol consumption. RESULTS: the proportion of respondents who were prefrail and frail were 33.8% [95% confidence interval (CI) 33.0-34.6%] and 11.7 (11.1-12.2)%, respectively. Participants in the lowest wealth quintile and living in the most deprived neighbourhood quintile had 1.3 (95% CI = 1.2-1.3) and 2.2 (95% CI = 2.1-2.4) times higher odds of being prefrail and frail, respectively, than the wealthiest participants living in the least deprived neighbourhoods Living in more deprived neighbourhood and poorer wealth was associated with an increased risk of becoming frail. Those inequalities did not change over time. CONCLUSIONS: in this population-based sample, living in a deprived area or having low wealth was associated with frailty in middle-aged and older adults. This relationship was independent of the effects of individual demographic characteristics and health behaviours.
Author(s): Maharani A, Sinclair DR, Chandola T, Bower P, Clegg A, Hanratty B, Nazroo J, Pendleton N, Tampubolon G, Todd C, Wittenberg R, O'Neill TW, Matthews FE
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Age and Ageing
Year: 2023
Volume: 52
Issue: 3
Print publication date: 01/03/2023
Online publication date: 29/03/2023
Acceptance date: 02/04/2022
Date deposited: 27/04/2023
ISSN (print): 0002-0729
ISSN (electronic): 1468-2834
Publisher: Oxford University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad034
DOI: 10.1093/ageing/afad034
PubMed id: 36995138
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