title: To flourish or not: positive mental health and all-cause mortality.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We investigated whether positive mental health predicts all-cause mortality.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data were from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study (n = 3032), which at baseline in 1995 measured positive mental health (flourishing and not) and past-year mental illness (major depressive episode, panic attacks, and generalized anxiety disorders), and linked respondents with National Death Index records in a 10-year follow-up ending in 2005. Covariates were age, gender, race, education, any past-year mental illness, smoking, physical inactivity, physical diseases, and physical disease risk factors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 6.3% of participants died during the study period. The final and fully adjusted odds ratio of mortality was 1.62 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.00, 2.62; P = .05) for adults who were not flourishing, relative to participants with flourishing mental health. Age, gender, race, education, smoking, physical inactivity, cardiovascular disease, and HIV/AIDS were significant predictors of death during the study period.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The absence of positive mental health increased the probability of all-cause mortality for men and women at all ages after adjustment for known causes of death.
authors.affiliation: Emory University, Department of Sociology, Room 225 Tarbutton Hall, 1555 Dickey Dr, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. ckeyes@emory.edu
authors.forename: Corey L M
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Keyes
authors.forename: Eduardo J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Simoes
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000401:mortality; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000401:mortality; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000401:mortality*; D008603:Mental Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D057185:Sedentary Behavior; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000401:mortality; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology