Garcia Morales Emmanuel E, Powel Danielle S, Gray Andrew, Assi Lama, Reed Nicholas S
Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States.
Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, United States.
Work Aging Retire. 2023 Apr 8;10(3):257-266. doi: 10.1093/workar/waad010. eCollection 2024 Jul.
To investigate the association between sensory loss and the timing and type of self-reported departures from the labor force, via retirement or disability, we used data from the Health and Retirement Study, cycles 2004-2018. Based on self-reported sensory loss, we classified individuals into four groups: no sensory loss, hearing loss only, vision loss only, and dual sensory loss (vision and hearing loss). We assumed that older adults could leave the labor force either by retirement or due to disability. Because once one type of exit is observed the other type cannot be observed, we implemented a competing risk approach to estimate the instantaneous rate of departure (sub-distribution hazard rate) for leaving the labor force due to disability, treating retirement as a competing risk, and for departures via retirement, with disability as the competing risk. We found that compared to older adults with no sensory loss, adults with vision loss are at a higher risk for leaving the labor force via disability (when treating retirement as a competing risk). Compared to no sensory loss, hearing loss was associated with a higher risk for retirement in models treating disability as a competing risk. Given the differences between disability and retirement benefits (before and after retirement age), policies intended to keep people with sensory loss from early labor force departures, such as accommodations in the workplace and/or hearing and vision care coverage, might contribute to better retiring conditions and healthy aging among older adults with sensory loss.
为了研究感觉功能丧失与通过退休或残疾自我报告的劳动力退出时间及类型之间的关联，我们使用了来自2004 - 2018年健康与退休研究的数据。基于自我报告的感觉功能丧失情况，我们将个体分为四组：无感觉功能丧失、仅听力丧失、仅视力丧失以及双重感觉功能丧失（视力和听力丧失）。我们假定老年人可以通过退休或因残疾离开劳动力队伍。由于一旦观察到一种退出类型，就无法观察到另一种类型，我们采用了竞争风险方法来估计因残疾离开劳动力队伍的瞬时退出率（子分布风险率），将退休视为竞争风险，对于通过退休退出的情况，则将残疾视为竞争风险。我们发现，与无感觉功能丧失的老年人相比，视力丧失的成年人因残疾离开劳动力队伍的风险更高（将退休视为竞争风险时）。与无感觉功能丧失相比，在将残疾视为竞争风险的模型中，听力丧失与更高的退休风险相关。鉴于残疾福利和退休福利在退休年龄前后存在差异，旨在防止有感觉功能丧失的人过早退出劳动力队伍的政策，如工作场所的便利设施和/或听力及视力保健覆盖范围，可能有助于改善有感觉功能丧失的老年人的退休条件和健康老龄化状况。
