New findings on "successful aging"

What, exactly, does "successful aging" mean? For more than a half century, researchers and gerontologists have argued whether successful aging is better defined subjectively (how older adults view their own state of aging) or objectively (physical disease-related disability or mental decline). Answering this question is more than an academic exercise. As the first members of the famed "baby boom generation" reach age 65, understanding what it means to remain healthy and independent in later life could have an enormous impact on health care delivery and medical policy.

Researchers from the New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging (NJISA) at the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine have recently unveiled new findings that clarify what it means to age successfully, and point to modifiable factors that could help more people remain healthy as they age. The researchers found that people are more likely to age successfully if they are educated, have never been incarcerated, are married, consume only moderate amounts of alcohol and either work for pay or do volunteer work. The findings, based on telephone surveys of more than 5,600 New Jersey residents between the ages of 50 and 74, appear in an advance article in The Gerontologist.

"What you do before age 50 really will generally have the bigger impact on how well you age," said lead author Rachel Pruchno, PhD, who is also the director of research at NJISA. "Our research shows how aging is a lifelong process. The person you become at a very old age is really a function of how you lived your earlier years."

The researchers examined how factors early in life, as well as current behaviors, distinguished four groups of older individuals: those who age successfully according to objective criteria; those who age successfully according to subjective criteria; those who are successful according to both measures; and those who age successfully according to neither set of criteria.

"Education and incarceration were particularly strong factors," Pruchno said. "The fact that we currently have a large number of people in prison serving relatively short sentences could herald a significant public health problem in the future. Interestingly, although marriage also coincided with successful aging, being childless did not appear to have a negative impact."