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How Neighborhood Structural and Individual Characteristics Affect Frailty Progression: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

  • Original Research
  • Published:
The journal of nutrition, health & aging

Abstract

Objectives

(1) To characterize the average trajectories of frailty over time in Chinese community-dwelling older adults; (2) To assess the effects of neighborhood structural and individual characteristics on frailty progression.

Design

A nationally representative prospective cohort study.

Setting

Communities in 28 provinces, China.

Participants

6238 respondents aged 60 and above in 447 communities from four waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study.

Measurements

Frailty was measured using the 61-item Frailty Index (FI).

Results

The trajectory of FI was nonlinear, with an average growth rate of 0.025 that significantly slows down at the rate of 0.002 per year. Older, male, and uninsured respondents showed faster rates of growth in FI over time than younger, female, and insured counterparts. Respondents living in neighborhoods with a higher percentage of the older population and rural villages showed slower rates of growth in FI over time.

Conclusion

Expanding health insurance coverage and keeping a high clustering of the elderly in neighborhoods may be the potential strategies for population-level frailty prevention and interventions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank all of the CHARLS respondents for participation and team members for providing data. Feng Ge thanks the China Scholarship Council [(2019)360] and the National Institute for International Education, Republic of Korea for scholarship support.

Funding

None declared.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Seoul National University Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    F. Ge & Soonman Kwon

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Correspondence to Soonman Kwon.

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The CHARLS study complies with the current laws of the country in which it was performed. The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at Peking University (IRB00001052-11015).

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The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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Ge, F., Kwon, S. How Neighborhood Structural and Individual Characteristics Affect Frailty Progression: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. J Nutr Health Aging 27, 362–370 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-023-1916-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-023-1916-1

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