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Ageism, Healthy Life Expectancy and Population Ageing: How Are They Related?

Evidence shows that ageism negatively impacts the health of older adults. However, estimates of its prevalence are lacking. This study aimed to estimate the global prevalence of ageism towards older adults and to explore possible explanatory factors. Data were included from 57 countries that took pa...

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Autores principales: Officer, Alana, Thiyagarajan, Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli, Schneiders, Mira Leonie, Nash, Paul, de la Fuente-Núñez, Vânia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32370093
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17093159
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author Officer, Alana
Thiyagarajan, Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli
Schneiders, Mira Leonie
Nash, Paul
de la Fuente-Núñez, Vânia
author_facet Officer, Alana
Thiyagarajan, Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli
Schneiders, Mira Leonie
Nash, Paul
de la Fuente-Núñez, Vânia
author_sort Officer, Alana
collection PubMed
description Evidence shows that ageism negatively impacts the health of older adults. However, estimates of its prevalence are lacking. This study aimed to estimate the global prevalence of ageism towards older adults and to explore possible explanatory factors. Data were included from 57 countries that took part in Wave 6 of the World Values Survey. Multilevel Latent Class Analysis was performed to identify distinct classes of individuals and countries. Individuals were classified as having high, moderate or low ageist attitudes; and countries as being highly, moderately or minimally ageist, by aggregating individual responses. Individual-level (age, sex, education and wealth) and contextual-level factors (healthy life expectancy, population health status and proportion of the population aged over 60 years) were examined as potential explanatory factors in multinomial logistic regression. From the 83,034 participants included, 44%, 32% and 24% were classified as having low, moderate and high ageist attitudes, respectively. From the 57 countries, 34 were classified as moderately or highly ageist. The likelihood of an individual or a country being ageist was significantly reduced by increases in healthy life expectancy and the proportion of older people within a country. Certain personal characteristics—younger age, being male and having lower education—were significantly associated with an increased probability of an individual having high ageist attitudes. At least one in every two people included in this study had moderate or high ageist attitudes. Despite the issue’s magnitude and negative health impacts, ageism remains a neglected global health issue.
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spelling pubmed-72466802020-06-10 Ageism, Healthy Life Expectancy and Population Ageing: How Are They Related? Officer, Alana Thiyagarajan, Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli Schneiders, Mira Leonie Nash, Paul de la Fuente-Núñez, Vânia Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Evidence shows that ageism negatively impacts the health of older adults. However, estimates of its prevalence are lacking. This study aimed to estimate the global prevalence of ageism towards older adults and to explore possible explanatory factors. Data were included from 57 countries that took part in Wave 6 of the World Values Survey. Multilevel Latent Class Analysis was performed to identify distinct classes of individuals and countries. Individuals were classified as having high, moderate or low ageist attitudes; and countries as being highly, moderately or minimally ageist, by aggregating individual responses. Individual-level (age, sex, education and wealth) and contextual-level factors (healthy life expectancy, population health status and proportion of the population aged over 60 years) were examined as potential explanatory factors in multinomial logistic regression. From the 83,034 participants included, 44%, 32% and 24% were classified as having low, moderate and high ageist attitudes, respectively. From the 57 countries, 34 were classified as moderately or highly ageist. The likelihood of an individual or a country being ageist was significantly reduced by increases in healthy life expectancy and the proportion of older people within a country. Certain personal characteristics—younger age, being male and having lower education—were significantly associated with an increased probability of an individual having high ageist attitudes. At least one in every two people included in this study had moderate or high ageist attitudes. Despite the issue’s magnitude and negative health impacts, ageism remains a neglected global health issue. MDPI 2020-05-01 2020-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7246680/ /pubmed/32370093 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17093159 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Officer, Alana
Thiyagarajan, Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli
Schneiders, Mira Leonie
Nash, Paul
de la Fuente-Núñez, Vânia
Ageism, Healthy Life Expectancy and Population Ageing: How Are They Related?
title Ageism, Healthy Life Expectancy and Population Ageing: How Are They Related?
title_full Ageism, Healthy Life Expectancy and Population Ageing: How Are They Related?
title_fullStr Ageism, Healthy Life Expectancy and Population Ageing: How Are They Related?
title_full_unstemmed Ageism, Healthy Life Expectancy and Population Ageing: How Are They Related?
title_short Ageism, Healthy Life Expectancy and Population Ageing: How Are They Related?
title_sort ageism, healthy life expectancy and population ageing: how are they related?
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32370093
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17093159
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