Self-Rated Activity Levels and Longevity: Evidence from a 20 Year Longitudinal Study

Abstract

The study reports on factors predicting the longevity of 328 people over the age of 65 drawn from an English city and followed over 20 years. Both the reported activities score and the individual's comparative evaluation of their own level of activity independently reduced the risk of death, even when health and cognitive status were taken into account. The analysis has provided a strong test of the relevance of measures of reported activity and measures of self-perception to longevity. The study confirms the important predictive role of reported activity levels even when detailed health measures are taken into account. But in addition personal perception of one's own relative level of activity, and to a lesser extent subjective assessment of health, also predicted longevity.

A critical review of the literature on social and leisure activity and wellbeing in later life

“…Unfortunately, many of the domain sets were not able to tease out the issue of choice, by grouping leisure and social activities into larger categories that mixed those that might be freely chosen from those that might be more obligatory. A second mediating factor, again broadly defined, was the value ascribed to or satisfaction found in activity or social participation, measured and noted for its role in several studies (Katz and Yelin 2001; Mullee et al 2008; Neugebauer, Katz and Pasch 2003; Nimrod and Adoni 2006). A third set of related mediating factors might be the purpose (Everard 1999) or meaning of the activity, shown to be relevant in the activity/wellbeing relationship in fewer studies (Lawton 1993; Lawton et al 2002).…”

“…Social relationship quality and supportiveness were found to be important mediators in the two studies by Litwin (2000, 2006). Perception of one's activity level as ‘enough’ (Hong, Hasche and Bowland 2009), satisfaction with leisure activities (Nimrod and Adoni 2006), the perceived value of activities (Katz and Yelin 2001; Neugebauer, Katz and Pasch 2003), or ‘activity self-evaluation’ (Mullee et al 2008) were all found to be influential variables in the activity/wellbeing relationship.…”

Perceived Risk of Death in Older Primary Care Patients

“…Whenever regular patients are assessed, new pieces of information enter the patient file and the general perception of the patient’ concerns and risk status is reconstructed in the professional’ perception of the patients status. Similarly with what happens with the predictive value of mortality, the patients’ self-perception of health or of the activity level (e.g., Ferraro & Wilkinson, 2013; Lee, 2000; Mullee, Coleman, Briggs, Stevenson, & Turnbull, 2008), professionals’ perception about their regular patients, may be a useful prescreening tool for further triage and intervention.…”

The Value of Adaptive Regret Management in Retirement

“…Consequently, we feel that our results may have implications for long-term developmental outcomes. For example, high levels of activity have been associated with retirement satisfaction, fewer health declines, and longevity (Linville, 1987;Morrow-Howel et al, 2003;Mullee et al, 2008;Pushkar et al, 2010). Thus, future research should examine how regret management, activity engagement, and retirement satisfaction predict indicators of older adults' long-term subjective well-being and physical health to identify pathways to successful development.…”