Scientific Reports (May 2021)

3-D health trajectories and related childhood predictors among older adults in China

  • Chaoping Pan,
  • Cen Wang,
  • Bhawana Shrestha,
  • Peigang Wang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89354-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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Abstract This study aimed to identify the multi-trajectories of 3-D health of older adults in China and to explore whether the childhood predictors are associated with 3-D health trajectory. Data came from five waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2011 to 2018). A multi-trajectory modeling approach was carried out to jointly estimate the trajectories of 3-D health. A multinomial regression model was used to investigate the relationships between childhood predictors and the joint trajectories. We identified three typical joint 3-D health trajectories. Female, childhood health, maternal and paternal educations, childhood friendships, family and neighborhood predictors could all affect 3-D health trajectories of older adults directly or indirectly through adult variables. The 3-D health trajectories showed increasing trends, thus the government should perform more interventions toward the childhood predictors for better health of older adults.