title: Aging Well Among Women Veterans Compared With Non-Veterans in the Women's Health Initiative.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine whether Veteran status influences (a) women's survival to age 80 years without disease and disability and (b) indicators of successful, effective, and optimal aging at ages 80 years and older.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) enrolled 161,808 postmenopausal women aged 50-79 years from 1993 to 1998. We compared successful aging indicators collected in 2011-2012 via mailed questionnaire among 33,565 women (921 Veterans) who reached the age of 80 years and older, according to Veteran status. A second analysis focused on women with intact mobility at baseline who could have reached age 80 years by December 2013. Multinominal logistic models examined Veteran status in relation to survival to age 80 years without major disease or mobility disability versus having prevalent or incident disease, having mobility disability, or dying prior to age 80 years.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Women Veterans aged 80 years and older reported significantly lower perceived health, physical function, life satisfaction, social support, quality of life, and purpose in life scale scores compared with non-Veterans. The largest difference was in physical function scores (53.0 for Veterans vs 59.5 for non-Veterans; p < .001). Women Veterans were significantly more likely to die prior to age 80 years than non-Veteran WHI participants (multivariate adjusted odds ratio = 1.20; 95% confidence interval, 1.04-1.38). In both Veteran and non-Veteran women, healthy survival was associated with not smoking, higher physical activity, healthy body weight, and fewer depressive symptoms.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Intervening upon smoking, low physical activity, obesity, and depressive symptoms has potential to improve chances for healthy survival in older women including Veterans.
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of California, San Diego. alacroix@ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Andrea Z
authors.initials: AZ
authors.lastname: LaCroix
authors.affiliation: Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington.
authors.forename: Eileen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rillamas-Sun
authors.affiliation: Seattle WHI Clinical Center, Biobehavioral Nursing, University of Washington.
authors.forename: Nancy F
authors.initials: NF
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.affiliation: VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Sierra Pacific MIRECC and Center for Innovation to Implementation, California. Stanford Cancer Institute, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Weitlauf
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Welfare, University of Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Zaslavsky
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Arlington, Virginia.
authors.forename: Regina
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shih
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, State University of New York at Buffalo.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: LaMonte
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California.
authors.forename: Chloe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bird
authors.affiliation: VA HSR&D Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation and Policy (CSHIIP), VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, California. Department of Health Policy and Management, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles.
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Yano
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Meryl
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: LeBoff
authors.affiliation: VA HSR&D Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation and Policy (CSHIIP), VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, California.
authors.forename: Donna
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Washington
authors.affiliation: Health Services Research and Development, Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, Washington. Departments of Health Services and Epidemiology, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle.
authors.forename: Gayle
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Reiber
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003863:Depression; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008875:Middle Aged; D051346:Mobility Limitation; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011446:Prospective Studies; D065840:Protective Factors; D011788:Quality of Life; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking; D012944:Social Support; D014728:Veterans; D016387:Women's Health
keywords: Healthy aging; Quality of life; Women Veterans; disability