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Population Priorities for Successful Aging: A Randomized Vignette Experiment

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  • Elise Whitley
  • Michaela Benzeval
  • Frank Popham
  • Bob G Knight

Abstract

ObjectivesAging populations have led to increasing interest in “successful aging” but there is no consensus as to what this entails. We aimed to understand the relative importance to the general population of six commonly-used successful aging dimensions (disease, disability, physical functioning, cognitive functioning, interpersonal engagement, and productive engagement).MethodTwo thousand and ten British men and women were shown vignettes describing an older person with randomly determined favorable/unfavorable outcomes for each dimension and asked to score (0–10) how successfully the person was aging.ResultsVignettes with favorable successful aging dimensions were given higher mean scores than those with unfavorable dimensions. The dimensions given greatest importance were cognitive function (difference [95% confidence interval {CI}] in mean scores: 1.20 [1.11, 1.30]) and disability (1.18 [1.08, 1.27]), while disease (0.73 [0.64, 0.82]) and productive engagement (0.58 [0.49, 0.66]) were given the least importance. Older respondents gave increasingly greater relative importance to physical function, cognitive function, and productive engagement.DiscussionSuccessful aging definitions that focus on disease do not reflect the views of the population in general and older people in particular. Practitioners and policy makers should be aware of older people’s priorities for aging and understand how these differ from their own.

Suggested Citation

  • Elise Whitley & Michaela Benzeval & Frank Popham & Bob G Knight, 2020. "Population Priorities for Successful Aging: A Randomized Vignette Experiment," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(2), pages 293-302.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:2:p:293-302.
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    3. James W. Vaupel, 2010. "Biodemography of human ageing," Nature, Nature, vol. 464(7288), pages 536-542, March.
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