Population aging at cross-roads: diverging secular trends in average cognitive functioning and physical health in the older population of Germany

11392 7 54797 2 153949 document 54797 Population Aging at Cross-Roads.PDF application/pdf c16e6d652f2af6b5b87e9d46567bf704 MD5 1121539 2016-05-09 14:03:19 https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/11392/1/Population%20Aging%20at%20Cross-Roads.PDF 11392 1 1 application/pdf text en public cc_by

Population Aging at Cross-Roads.PDF

published 54822 2 153984 document 54822 lightbox.jpg image/png 60ad5eba65a7aa44e4d2ce123b8aa5e2 MD5 52589 2016-05-09 14:13:33 https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/11392/2/lightbox.jpg 11392 2 2 image/png other Thumbnails conversion from text to thumbnail_lightbox en public

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http://eprints.org/relation/isVersionOf https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/document/54797 http://eprints.org/relation/isVolatileVersionOf https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/document/54797 http://eprints.org/relation/issmallThumbnailVersionOf https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/document/54797 archive 351 disk0/00/01/13/92 2016-01-15 08:53:05 2021-08-27 17:39:51 2016-01-15 08:53:05 article show Steiber N. 2039 Population aging at cross-roads: diverging secular trends in average cognitive functioning and physical health in the older population of Germany pub iis_pop prog_pop This paper uses individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to model trends in populaton health in terms of cognition, physical fitness, and mental health between 2006 and 2012. The focus is on the population aged 50-90. We use a repeated population-based cross-sectional design. As outcome measures, we use SF-12 measures of physical and mental health and the Symbol-Digit Test (SDT) that captures cognitive processing speed. In line with previous research we find a highly significant 'Flynn effect' on cognition; i.e., SDT scores are higher among those who were tested more recently (at the same age). This result holds for men and women, all age groups, and across all levels of education. While we observe a secular improvement in terms of cognitive functioning, at the same tme, average physical and mental health has declined. The decline in average physical health is shown to be stronger for men than for women and found to be strongest for low-educated, young-old men aged 50-64: the decline over the 6-year interval in average physical health is estimated to amount to about 0.37 SD, whereas average fluid cognition improved by about 0.29 SD. This pattern of results at the populaton-level (trends in average population health) stands in interesting contrast to the positive association of physical health and cognitive functionig at the individual-level. The findings underscore the multi-dimensionality of health and the aging process. 2015-08 published Public Library of Science (PLoS) 10.1371/journal.pone.0136583 XJ-15-170 PLoS ONE; 10(8):e0136583 [August 2015] [doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0136583] 292 public PLoS ONE 10 8 e0136583 TRUE 1932-6203 FALSE info:eu-repo/semantics/article