Statistics Unit, Riga Stradiņš University, Riga, Latvia.
Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Front Public Health. 2023 Sep 6;11:1231779. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1231779. eCollection 2023.
The aging population presents both unique challenges and opportunities for societies around the world. To develop an effective healthy aging strategy, a tool for assessing aging process is needed. Numerous attempts to quantify the aging process have been made. However, there is still a challenge in developing and choosing a good enough score that is easy to apply, has a construct of variables that are available in most nationwide surveys for comparable results, and at the same time reflects the aging process of older individuals. The purpose of this study is to present our approach to construct a comparable Healthy Aging Index (HAI).
In Latvia, data from Wave 8 of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), involving 420 respondents, were used. For comparative analysis, data from a HL20 study on the health and wellbeing of the older adults in Iceland, which included 1,033 respondents, were used.
For Latvia, 13 items were selected, and for Iceland, nine items were selected. We constructed the HAI with four similar subscales for both countries-"Autonomy," "Health," "Wellbeing," and "Activities," and an additional subscale "Cognitive" for Latvia. We found matching items in all four subscales. For the Autonomy subscale, they were related to difficulties with everyday and daily tasks. In the Health subscale, the only matching item was self-rated physical health. One item related to loneliness was found for the Wellbeing subscale and one item related to social participation for the Activities subscale.
In our study, we found evidence for the successful construction of a HAI in two different datasets. The strength of our construct lies in the use of data from one of the largest social science panel studies in Europe (SHARE). As we were able to apply the construct to the Icelandic study, we believe that items presented in our approach are available in other population-based studies as well, and, therefore, can be easily replicated by others. By examining the existing SHARE data, HAI could be used to analyze long-term changes and could provide a foundation for comparing and monitoring the evolution of aging over time as well as comparing the aging process across societies. This is required for the authorities to conduct further analyses, proposals, and action plans in support of healthy aging.
人口老龄化给世界各国的社会带来了独特的挑战和机遇。为了制定有效的健康老龄化战略，需要一种评估老龄化进程的工具。人们已经尝试了无数次来量化老龄化进程。然而，在开发和选择一个足够好的、易于应用的、具有可在大多数全国性调查中获得的变量结构的评分方面，仍然存在挑战，同时还需要反映老年人的老龄化过程。本研究旨在介绍构建可比健康老龄化指数（HAI）的方法。
利用欧洲健康、老龄化和退休调查（SHARE）第 8 波涉及 420 名受访者的数据进行比较分析。利用冰岛老年人健康和福祉 HL20 研究的数据，该研究包含 1033 名受访者，用于比较分析。
为拉脱维亚选择了 13 项，为冰岛选择了 9 项。我们为两国构建了 HAI，包括四个相似的子量表——“自主”、“健康”、“幸福”和“活动”，以及拉脱维亚的一个额外的“认知”子量表。我们在所有四个子量表中都找到了匹配的项目。对于自主子量表，它们与日常和日常任务的困难有关。在健康子量表中，唯一匹配的项目是自我评估的身体健康。在幸福子量表中发现了一个与孤独有关的项目，在活动子量表中发现了一个与社会参与有关的项目。
在我们的研究中，我们在两个不同的数据集发现了构建 HAI 的证据。我们的结构的优势在于使用了欧洲最大的社会科学面板研究之一（SHARE）的数据。由于我们能够将该结构应用于冰岛研究，我们相信我们方法中提出的项目也存在于其他基于人群的研究中，因此其他人可以轻松复制。通过检查现有的 SHARE 数据，可以使用 HAI 来分析长期变化，并为比较和监测随时间推移的老龄化演变以及比较不同社会的老龄化过程提供基础。这是当局进行进一步分析、提议和行动计划以支持健康老龄化所必需的。
