title: Socioeconomic circumstances, health behaviours and functional limitations in older persons in four Central and Eastern European populations.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  to investigate functional limitations and their association with socioeconomic factors in four Central and Eastern European populations.
  
  
  METHODS
  a cross-sectional study of random population samples in Novosibirsk (Russia), Krakow (Poland), Kaunas (Lithuania) and six Czech towns participating in the HAPIEE study. Functional limitations (classified into tertiles of the SF-36 physical functioning subscale), socioeconomic circumstances and health behaviours were available for 34,431 subjects aged 45-69 years.
  
  
  RESULTS
  the proportion of subjects in the worst tertile of the functional limitations score (≤80% of the maximum score) ranged from 21% of the men in Kaunas to 48% in Krakow women. In multivariate ordered logistic regression, functional limitations were strongly inversely associated with education and positively with material deprivation and with being economically inactive. Functional limitations were more common in male smokers and less common in alcohol drinkers. Socioeconomic characteristics explained some of the differences in functional limitations between populations. Health behaviours explained some of the differences between social groups in both genders and between populations in women.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  unexpectedly, functional limitations were not most common in the sample from Russia, the country with the highest mortality rates. All socioeconomic measures were strongly associated with functional limitations and made some contribution towards explaining differences in limitations between populations.
authors.affiliation: Jagiellonian University, Krakow,  Poland.
authors.forename: Agnieszka
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Doryńska
authors.forename: Andrzej
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pajak
authors.forename: Ruzena
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kubinova
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Malyutina
authors.forename: Abdonas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tamosiunas
authors.forename: Hynek
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pikhart
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Peasey
authors.forename: Yuri
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nikitin
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marmot
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bobak
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000208:ethnology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D018153:Czech Republic; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D015438:Health Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D006801:Humans; D008097:Lithuania; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011044:Poland; D012426:Russia; D012907:Smoking / Q000208:ethnology; D012923:Social Class