American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 119, No. 3: 410-423
Copyright © 1984 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
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PSYCHOSOCIAL PREDICTORS OF MORTALITY AMONG THE ELDERLY POOR
THE ROLE OF RELIGION, WELL-BEING, AND SOCIAL CONTACTS
1Radcliffe College Cambridge, MA 02138
2Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine 60 College Street, P.O. Box 3333, New Haven, CT 06150. (Send reprint requests to Dr. Kasl.)
Zuckerman, D. M., S. V. Kasl (Yale U. School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510) and A. M. Ostfeld. Psychosocial predictors of mortality among the elderly poor: the role of religion, well-being, and social contacts. Am J Epidemiol 1984; 119: 41–23.
Mortality data during a two-year follow-up were obtained on some 400 elderly poor residents of New Haven, Hartford, and West Haven, Connecticut, in 1972–1974. These subjects were cases and controls in a study of the health effects of residential relocation. Initial data collection included a detailed health history, sociodemographic and background variables, and a variety of behavioral and psychological data. The variables selected for analysis in this report were: religious beliefs, social contacts, feelings of well-being, and affective states. Stepwise logistic regressions were used to determine the role of these psychosocial variables in predicting mortality, while controlling for case/control status, demographic variables, and health status (measured by an index maximally predictive of mortality in this sample). Three psychosocial variables were significant predictors: religiousness, happiness (as rated by the interviewers), and presence of living offspring. The first two reduced the risk of mortality primarily among the elderly who were in poor health, while the third one did not interact with health status.
aged; mortality; religion and medicine; social environment
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