05 July 2015 - 14 July 2015
Santa Monica, USA

Daniela Weber at the RAND Corporation

World Population Researcher Daniela Weber will present latest results on health dynamics from the Re-Aging project at the RAND Center for the Study of Aging.

© Rehamark_Dreamstime.com - Old Man

© Rehamark_Dreamstime.com - Old Man

The RAND Corporation hosts an annual Summer Institute addressing critical issues related to aging populations. Young researchers who are working in the field of aging are invited to discuss and strenghten their knowledge on the science of aging and the interrelationship of health, economic status, and public policy on the aging field.

World Population Researcher Daniela Weber will participate at the RAND Summer Institute - Mini-Medical School for Social Scientists, an invitational series of lectures about biomedical issues relating to aging, followed by the 22nd annual RAND Summer Institute (RSI) on the Demography, Economics, Psychology, and Epidemiology of Aging. On 11 July Weber will also give a presentation entitled "Health dynamics of older populations across four continents" at the Comparative International Research Based on the HRS Family of Data Conference.

Weber is part of the Reassessing Ageing from a Population Perspective (Re-Ageing) project team at IIASA that, among other things, ascertains the extent to which advanced societies are actually aging in multiple dimensions, including health, cognitive abilities, and longevity. Within this project, her reasearch focusses on cognitive & physical functioning, biomarkers and statistical modelling.

The events are sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research.

For more information to the events please visit the RAND website.

Presentation Abstract

In a nutshell, worldwide populations are growing older. Particularly in mid and high income countries life expectancy is increasing, which goes along with increased shares of older populations. Therefore the health status of those populations and their determinants are a broadly discussed issue especially as many countries fear economic and societal burden. Prior work has shown that health status does not only depend on biological factors such as age and sex, but also on behavioral risk factors and socio-demographic factors, e.g. marital status and education.

The main purpose of this study is to show and analyze di fferences in health trajectories from an international perspective. Here, health measures such as self-reported health status, disabilities in physical functioning, and reported chronic diseases are examined using comparable aging surveys (e.g. CRELES, ELSA, HRS, JSTAR, KLOSA, SAGE, and SHARE).

Moreover, we investigate objective health measures (e.g. hand-grip strength) and a ctive functioning. Preliminary results show remarkable di fferences between and within countries across Africa, Asia, America, and Europe. For instance, investigating hand-grip strength, which co-varies with measures of general health, German men appear to be the strongest with 46 kg on average, while Indians reach only about 29 kg on average. Looking at chronic diseases, in 2006 the United States turns out to have the unhealthiest population aged 50+ with about 32.54% reporting at least three chronic diseases, whereas only 3.86% Swiss aged 50+ report at least three chronic diseases.



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Last edited: 24 June 2015

CONTACT DETAILS

Daniela Weber

Senior Research Scholar Social Cohesion, Health, and Wellbeing Research Group - Population and Just Societies Program

Learn more about the "Reassessing Aging from a Population Perspective" project

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313