Predictors of decline in self-reported health: addressing non-ignorable dropout in longitudinal studies of aging.

ABSTRACT: Predictors of decline in health in older populations have been investigated in multiple studies before. Most longitudinal studies of aging, however, assume that dropout at follow-up is ignorable (missing at random) given a set of observed characteristics at baseline. The objective of this study was to address non-ignorable dropout in investigating predictors of declining self-reported health (SRH) in older populations (50 years or older) in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Italy. We used the SHARE panel survey, and since only 2895 out of the original 5657 participants in the survey 2004 were followed up in 2013, we studied whether the results were sensitive to the expectation that those dropping out have a higher proportion of decliners in SRH. We found that older age and a greater number of c

SUBMITTER: Genback M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5971030 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature