title: Functional health status as a predictor of mortality in men and women over 65.
abstract: This study evaluated the effect of functional health status on mortality in a sample of community-dwelling older people. White and African-American self-respondents to the 1986 National Health Interview Survey Functional Health Supplement (n = 5, 320) were included in the study. Functional health status was measured by a ten-item unidimensional activities of daily living-instrumental activities of daily living (ADL-IADL) scale and a three-item cognitive ADL scale. Proportional hazards regression was used to evaluate the effect of increasing score on the ten-item ADL-IADL scale on risk of mortality over a 5-year period while controlling for demographic, social, and health status covariates. In both men and women, increasing score on the ADL-IADL scale was predictive of mortality, adjusting for increasing age, poor self-rated health, low body mass index in women, and being an unmarried man. These findings indicate that a unidimensional scale consisting of both ADL and IADL items is useful in predicting mortality, controlling for the effect of covariates in sex-specific models.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia 29208, USA.
authors.forename: W K
authors.initials: WK
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Macera
authors.forename: C B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Cornman
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Sharpe
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009026:Mortality; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014481:United States