IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/31949.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unobserved Factors Linking Functional Decline and Depression Among the Oldest Americans

Author

Listed:
  • Obrizan, Maksym

Abstract

This study considers the dependence between functional decline and depression in a nationally representative sample of older Americans from the Survey on Assets and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) covering the years from 1993 to 2002. Previous research has shown that depression is a significant predictor of functional decline and, conversely, functional limitations lead to more depressive symptoms. While this cross-dependence is an established fact in the literature, relatively few prior papers formally modeled the association between functional decline and depression. In this paper, functional decline is defined as 2 or more limitations in 5 Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and 2 or more limitations in 5 Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) from the baseline to the last available follow-up interview. Depression is defined as 3 or more points on the 8-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale over the same range of time. In the analytic sample of 5,470 oldest Americans, each of the three measures is initially estimated in the univariate probit model controlling for a rich set of available risk factors identified in the previous studies. Then it is argued that univariate probit models are incapable of capturing individual differences (for example, predisposition to both physical and emotional ill health) that may link functional decline and depression in the oldest Americans. Thus, a more advanced multivariate probit model is employed, and three discrete equations are estimated jointly. In this way, unmeasured factors specific to the individual will become part of the error terms, and statistically significant correlations in the variance matrix will indicate dependence between functional decline and depression. Estimation of multivariate probit model reveals substantial unobserved heterogeneity in the dynamics of ADLs, IADLs, and CES-D score over time. Thus, previous results based on univariate methods should be interpreted with caution.

Suggested Citation

  • Obrizan, Maksym, 2011. "Unobserved Factors Linking Functional Decline and Depression Among the Oldest Americans," MPRA Paper 31949, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:31949
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/31949/1/MPRA_paper_31949.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Balia, Silvia & Jones, Andrew M., 2008. "Mortality, lifestyle and socio-economic status," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-26, January.
    2. Lamb, Vicki L., 1996. "A cross-national study of quality of life factors associated with patterns of elderly disablement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 363-377, February.
    3. F. Thomas Juster & Richard Suzman, 1995. "An Overview of the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30, pages 7-56.
    4. Stuck, Andreas E. & Walthert, Jutta M. & Nikolaus, Thorsten & Büla, Christophe J. & Hohmann, Christoph & Beck, John C., 1999. "Risk factors for functional status decline in community-living elderly people: a systematic literature review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 445-469, February.
    5. Lorenzo Cappellari & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2003. "Multivariate probit regression using simulated maximum likelihood," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 3(3), pages 278-294, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cinzia Di Novi, 2007. "An Economic Evaluation of Life-Style and Air-pollution-related Damages: Results from the BRFSS," JEPS Working Papers 07-001, JEPS.
    2. Di Novi, Cinzia & Martini, Gianmaria & Sturaro, Caterina, 2023. "The impact of informal and formal care disruption on older adults’ psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in UK," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    3. Asmare, Fissha & Giedraitis, Vincentas & Jaraitė, Jūratė & Kažukauskas, Andrius, 2023. "Energy-related financial literacy and retrofits of Soviet-era apartment buildings: The case of Lithuania," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    4. Fang, Xiangming & Tarui, Nori, 2015. "Child Maltreatment, Family Characteristics, and Educational Attainment: Evidence from Add Health Data," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205319, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Kanchan Joshi & Thiagu Ranganathan & Ram Ranjan, 2021. "Exploring Higher Order Risk Preferences of Farmers in a Water-Scarce Region: Evidence from a Field Experiment in West Bengal, India," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 19(2), pages 317-344, June.
    6. Juergen Jung, 2022. "Estimating transition probabilities between health states using US longitudinal survey data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 901-943, August.
    7. Di Novi, Cinzia, 2013. "The indirect effect of fine particulate matter on health through individuals’ life-style," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 27-36.
    8. Young, Gary & Valdez, Emiliano A. & Kohn, Robert, 2009. "Multivariate probit models for conditional claim-types," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 214-228, April.
    9. Miriam Marcén & José Molina, 2012. "Informal caring-time and caregiver satisfaction," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(6), pages 683-705, December.
    10. STANCIOLE Anderson, 2007. "Health Insurance and Life Style Choices: Identifying the Ex Ante Moral Hazard," IRISS Working Paper Series 2007-10, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    11. Nivorozhkina, Ludmila, 2017. "Current incomes and financial behavior of households: Who loses more in a crisis?," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 48, pages 85-96.
    12. Cottini Elena & Ghinetti Paolo, 2017. "Is it the Way You Live or the Job You Have? Health Effects of Lifestyles and Working Conditions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 1-20, July.
    13. Cinzia Di Novi & Lucia Leporatti & Marcello Montefiori, 2020. "Older patients and geographic barriers to pharmacy access: When nonadherence translates to an increased use of other components of health care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(S1), pages 97-109, October.
    14. Elena Cottini & Paolo Ghinetti, 2012. "Working Conditions, Lifestyles and Health," Economics Working Papers 2012-28, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    15. Cinzia Di Novi, 2010. "The influence of traffic‐related pollution on individuals' life‐style: results from the BRFSS," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(11), pages 1318-1344, November.
    16. Ovrum, Arnstein & Rickertsen, Kyrre, 2011. "Inequality in Health Versus Inequality in Lifestyles," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114556, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Brit S. Schneider & Udo Schneider, 2009. "Determinants and Consequences of Health Behaviour: New Evidence from German Micro Data," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 253, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    18. Cinzia Di Novi, 2011. "Quality and Reputation: The Indirect Effect of Fine Particulate Matter on Health through Individuals' Life-style," DISCE - Quaderni dell'Istituto di Economia dell'Impresa e del Lavoro ieil0062, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    19. Lyssenko, Nikita & Martinez-Espineira, Roberto, 2009. "`Been there done that': Disentangling option value effects from user heterogeneity when valuing natural resources with a use component," MPRA Paper 21976, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Apr 2010.
    20. Nicholas J. Bishop & Natalie D. Eggum-Wilkens & Steven A. Haas & Jennie J. Kronenfeld, 2016. "Estimating the Co-Development of Cognitive Decline and Physical Mobility Limitations in Older U.S. Adults," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(2), pages 337-364, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Multivariate probit; Activities of Daily Living; Depression; Older Adults;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • C35 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:31949. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.