Gender Differences in Widowhood Effects Among Community-Dwelling Elders by Causes of Death in Taiwan

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• 作者：Shao-You Fang ; MS^a ; Nicole Huang ; PhD^a ; ^b ; Kuang-Hung Chen ; MS^a ; ^c ; Hsueh-Han Yeh ; MS^c ; Keh-Ming Lin ; MD ; MPH^c ; Chuan-Yu Chen ; PhD^a ; ^c ; ^d ; ^{chuanychen@ym.edu.tw}
• 关键词：Widowhood ; Elderly ; Gender Differences ; Risk Score
• 刊名：Annals of Epidemiology
• 出版年：2012
• 期刊代码：15_10472797
• 类别：med
• 出版时间：July, 2012
• 卷：22
• 期：7
• 页码：457-465
• 文件大小：224 K

摘要

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Purpose

We sought to determine whether widowhood-associated excess mortality differs by gender in terms of causes of death.

Methods

Data were collected from a five-wave interview of approximately 2500 community-dwelling elders in the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Nearly Elderly and Elderly. Baseline characteristics were used to derive the risk score (RS) to reflect individual鈥檚 baseline pre-widowhood vulnerability. Time-dependent Cox regression analyses were used to estimate spousal loss-related mortality by causes.

Results

For males, the adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) of widowhood for all-cause and some major causes of death (e.g., neoplasm) increased inversely with RS: the aHRs for all-cause death were 4.81 and 1.76 in the lowest and highest RS groups, respectively. In contrast, the corresponding aHRs were relatively homogeneous for women (1.52 and 1.70).

Conclusions

Identifying gender heterogeneity in widowhood effects can guide further efforts to devise gender-tailored programs to enhance healthy aging.