Social and Economic Predictors of Worse Frailty Status Occurrence Across Selected Countries in North and South America and Europe

BACKGROUND: Frailty, a state of vulnerability to poor resolution of homoeostasis after a health stressor, may be a result of cumulative decline in many physiological systems across the life course and its prevalence and incidence rates vary widely depending on the place and population subgroup. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine social and economic factors as predictors of worse frailty status over 2 years of follow-up in a sample of community-dwelling older adults from the International Mobility in Aging Study. METHODS: We analyzed 2012 baseline and 2014 follow-up (n = 1,724) data on participants from a populational-based, longitudinal study conducted in 4 countries (e.g., Brazil, Colombia, Albania, and Canada). Frailty was defined according to the Fried’s phenotype and Poisson regression models with robust standard errors were performed to estimate the relative risks of becoming frail. RESULTS: In our study, 366 (21.2%) participants migrated to a worse stage of frailty. After statistical adjustment (e.g., participant age, sex, and study site), insufficient income (RR = 1.40; 95% CI = 1.00–1.96) and having partner support (RR = 0.80; 95% CI = 0.64–1.01) were predictors of incident frailty status. CONCLUSION: Notably, transitions in frailty status were observed even in a short range of time, with sociodemographic factors predicting incident frailty.