Uineken, Maarten (2022) Healthy Ageing: The effect of accumulated lifestyle factors on physical capabilities of elderly in Sweden. Bachelor thesis.
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Abstract
Population ageing is a challenge for all Western countries, especially for countries with a strong social welfare state like Sweden. Improving physical health at older ages both alleviates the burden of an ageing population and is of great interest for individuals and their families. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to gain more insight into the lifestyle risk factors influencing physical health at older ages from a life course epidemiological perspective. The accompanied central research question is: ‘What is the relationship between accumulated lifestyle factors and physical health in later life in Sweden?’ The central research question is answered using statistical analyses on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) dataset looking at the effects of accumulated lifestyle factors upon large muscle function, mobility and fine motor skills. The analyses also look into the effects of the separate lifestyle factors (smoking behaviour, alcohol use, physical activity, body mass index and fruit- and vegetable consumption) as well as gender differences in the effects of accumulated lifestyle factors. Several ordinal logistic regressions and binary logistic regressions were conducted and the effects are controlled for gender, educational levels, number of chronic diseases and age. The resulting odds ratios indicate the accumulated healthy lifestyle factors to have a profound positive effect on all 3 health outcomes. The strongest effect was found to be on mobility with an odds ratio of 1,578 (C.I. coefficient .356-.555) followed by fine motor skills with 1,461 and large muscle function with 1,427 (C.I. coefficient 2.119-3.052). Therefore, it is advisable for governments to direct policies at enhancing healthy lifestyle behaviours to improve physical health at older ages.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Degree programme: | Human Geography and Planning |
| Supervisor: | Vogt, T.C. and Bister, L. |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Jun 2022 07:14 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Jun 2022 07:14 |
| URI: | https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3834 |
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