Preprint · Jun 23, 2023
Subjective Social Status and Trajectories of Frailty. Findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging
By Maharani A, Richards L, Präg P
Objectives: Subjective social status is a known antecedent for many health outcomes, but little research has examined the association between subjective status and frailty among older people. Using longitudinal data, the goal of this study was firstly, to identify latent trajectories of frailty over time, and secondly, to investigate the relationship between subjective social status and frailty trajectory.Methods: Data were drawn from the 2002–2019 surveys of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), involving 9,484 individuals aged 50+ at baseline. Group-based trajectory models were used to identify trajectories of frailty over the eighteen-year period, and multinomial regression models were used to investigate the relationship between subjective social status and frailty trajectory membership. Controls were included for confounding factors including a range of socioeconomic indicators and health behaviors. Results: Four trajectories of frailty index were retained: Low frailty (53% of participants), Progressive mild frailty (25%), Progressive moderate frailty (15%), and High frailty (6%). We find that higher subjective social status is associated with higher odds of being in the low frailty group and lower odds of being in one of the progressive or high frailty groups. Conclusions: Subjective social status is significantly associated with being in a milder frailty trajectories after controlling for age, health behaviors, and a wide range of objective socioeconomic status markers.