TY - JOUR
T1 - Physical Function in U.S. Older Adults Compared With Other Populations
T2 - A Multinational Study
AU - Glei, Dana A.
AU - Goldman, Noreen
AU - Ryff, Carol D.
AU - Weinstein, Maxine
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging (Grant numbers R01AG16790 to N.G., R01AG16661 to M.W., P01 AG020166 to C.D.R.); the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant number P2CHD047879); the General Clinical Research Centers Program at the National Institutes of Health (Grant numbers M01-RR023942, M01-RR00865); the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (Grant number UL1TR000427), and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Georgetown University.
Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the staff at the Center for Population and Health Survey Research (Health Promotion Administration at the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taiwan) who were instrumental in the design and implementation of the SEBAS and supervised all aspects of the fieldwork and data processing. They also thank the investigators, staff, fieldworkers, and individuals who participated in the CRELES, ELSA, HRS, MIDUS, NHANES, and SEBAS surveys for their vital contributions to the resulting datasets. The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging (Grant numbers R01AG16790 to N.G., R01AG16661 to M.W., P01 AG020166 to C.D.R.); the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant number P2CHD047879); the General Clinical Research Centers Program at the National Institutes of Health (Grant numbers M01-RR023942, M01-RR00865); the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (Grant number UL1TR000427), and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Georgetown University.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2019/8/1
Y1 - 2019/8/1
N2 - Objective: We compare physical performance from three U.S. national surveys and nationally representative surveys in England, Taiwan, and Costa Rica. Method: For each performance test, we use local mean smoothing to plot the age profiles by sex and survey wave and then fit a linear regression model to the pooled data, separately by sex, to test for significant differences across surveys controlling for age and height. Results: Age profiles of performance vary across U.S. surveys, but levels of lung function (peak expiratory flow) and handgrip strength in the United States are as high as they are in the other three countries. Americans also perform as well on the chair stand test as the English and Costa Ricans, if not better, but exhibit slower gait speed than the English at most ages. Discussion: With the exception of walking speed, we find little evidence that older Americans have worse physical performance than their peers.
AB - Objective: We compare physical performance from three U.S. national surveys and nationally representative surveys in England, Taiwan, and Costa Rica. Method: For each performance test, we use local mean smoothing to plot the age profiles by sex and survey wave and then fit a linear regression model to the pooled data, separately by sex, to test for significant differences across surveys controlling for age and height. Results: Age profiles of performance vary across U.S. surveys, but levels of lung function (peak expiratory flow) and handgrip strength in the United States are as high as they are in the other three countries. Americans also perform as well on the chair stand test as the English and Costa Ricans, if not better, but exhibit slower gait speed than the English at most ages. Discussion: With the exception of walking speed, we find little evidence that older Americans have worse physical performance than their peers.
KW - chair stand test
KW - gait speed
KW - nationally representative survey
KW - peak expiratory flow
KW - physical performance battery
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U2 - 10.1177/0898264318759378
DO - 10.1177/0898264318759378
M3 - Article
C2 - 29466893
AN - SCOPUS:85042431696
SN - 0898-2643
VL - 31
SP - 1067
EP - 1084
JO - Journal of Aging and Health
JF - Journal of Aging and Health
IS - 7
ER -