Health and Subjective Views on Aging: Longitudinal Findings From the ActiFE Ulm Study

OBJECTIVES: Previous research supports that subjective views on aging (VoA), such as older subjective age (SA) and negative attitudes toward own aging (ATOA), go along with negative outcomes. A differentiated treatment of health and disease as antecedents of VoA is largely lacking. Therefore, our objective was to estimate the relationship between generally framed physical, affective, and cognitive health as well as specific diseases and VoA, operationalized both as SA and ATOA. METHODS: Data were drawn from the ActiFE Ulm study for which a representative sample of community-dwelling older people (65–90 years) was recruited at baseline. Follow-ups were conducted 7.7 years (median) after recruitment (N = 526). Health- and disease-related data at baseline, based on established assessment procedures for epidemiological studies, were regressed on VoA (1-item SA indicator, 5-item ATOA scale) measures at follow-up. RESULTS: Reported severity of affective health problems such as depression was the strongest general risk factor for both older SA and negative ATOA. Also, some but not all major diseases considered were associated with VoA. Notably, back pain predicted negative ATOA, while cancer was associated with older SA. Rheumatism was linked with more negative ATOA along with higher SA. Throughout analyses, explained variance in ATOA was considerably higher than in SA. DISCUSSION: Affective health problems, such as depression, should be regarded as a major correlate of subjective aging views. Interestingly, diseases do not have to be life-threatening to be associated with older SA or negative ATOA.