The role of different predictors in 20-year mortality among Krakow older citizens

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to assess the change in the predictive ability of gender-related 20-year all-cause mortality in community-dwelling older people. Methods The baseline investigation was conducted in 1986–1987 and survival of 2472 subjects aged 65 years and older was followed up for 20 years. The associations of socioeconomic conditions and health measures with mortality were assessed using Cox hazard model with time-dependent covariates. Results Our study confirmed that higher education and being employed during the baseline were protective factors in males, but not among females. Healthy lifestyle was a predictive factor for all-cause mortality for both men and women and its predictive value was strong over the whole observation period. The study showed that poor self-rated health (SRH) was a valid predictor of mortality in elderly women, but not in men, and the effect of the length of follow-up on mortality was not observed. Overall, different sets of all-cause mortality predictors were found for men and women. For men the role of socioeconomic status factors was confirmed as well as healthy lifestyle and presence of chronic conditions, especially coronary heart disease (CHD) and asthma. For women the most important predictors were lifestyle factors and the feeling of life-weariness as well as SRH and diabetes mellitus present during the baseline study. Conclusions The impact of most of the examined factors on mortality was found to be stable over the twenty years of observation with the exception of the self-reported CHD, whose predictive value decreased over time.