Warburton Jeni, Peel Nancye May
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australasian Centre on Ageing, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, 4072 QLD, Australia.
Eur J Ageing. 2008 May 17;5(2):129. doi: 10.1007/s10433-008-0081-9. eCollection 2008 Jun.
This paper aims to contribute to the literature on the relationship between productive and healthy ageing as two key theoretical concepts in contemporary ageing. Specifically, volunteering as a productive activity in later life has been associated with social and health benefits for older people. Evidence from the literature has generally focused on global outcomes, such as mortality and self-rated health, or on measures of psychological well-being. This study explored whether volunteering is protective of an important adverse health outcome in later life, that of fall-related hip fracture, utilising data from a case control study of 387 participants. The results showed that volunteer activity in older age remained significantly protective of hip fracture risk [OR: 0.61 (0.38-0.99)], independent of social and physical activity, social support and health status, supporting the hypothesis of a relationship between the concepts of productive and healthy ageing. Whilst further studies are clearly needed to establish causality, these results suggest that health benefits of volunteering in later life might be more extensive than previous studies have shown.
本文旨在为当代老龄化领域中生产性老龄化和健康老龄化这两个关键理论概念之间的关系研究文献做出贡献。具体而言，志愿服务作为晚年的一种生产性活动，已被证明对老年人具有社会和健康益处。文献证据通常集中在全球范围内的结果，如死亡率和自评健康状况，或心理健康指标。本研究利用一项针对387名参与者的病例对照研究数据，探讨志愿服务是否能预防晚年一项重要的不良健康后果——与跌倒相关的髋部骨折。结果显示，老年人参与志愿活动对髋部骨折风险仍具有显著的保护作用[比值比：0.61（0.38 - 0.99）]，且不受社会和体育活动、社会支持及健康状况的影响，这支持了生产性老龄化和健康老龄化概念之间存在关联的假设。虽然显然需要进一步研究来确定因果关系，但这些结果表明，晚年参与志愿服务对健康的益处可能比以往研究显示的更为广泛。
