Kaarin Anstey, Kerry Sargent-Cox, Jacqui Brewer

Normal cognitive ageing is characterised by slowing of information processing and a decline in a range of cognitive abilities that involve problem solving, attention, working memory, episodic memory and executive function. Cognitive ageing only interferes with daily activities when there are complex cognitive demands occurring jointly with sensory and physical demands. In order to improve everyday function in older adults, we aim to develop an intervention targeting both complex cognitive demands and physical demands. As a pilot study, we aim to compare executive function training with a physical activity intervention (Jazzercise), compared with a comparison group receiving no intervention, on everyday function outcomes including a driving simulator task.

Commencement:  2013

Completion:   

Kerry Sargent-Cox, Kaarin Anstey

This project, led by Dr Kerry Sargent-Cox, will investigate the influence of age and health expectations on adults' health behaviours and health outcomes. 

Specifically the project aims to:

• Identify the stereotypes and expectations related to ageing and health and examine the relationship between stereotypes and interpretation of symptoms, health beliefs, medical help-seeking and preventive health behaviours;
• Identify health literacy related to "normal ageing";
• Identify moderators / mediators of relationships between age-expectations / attitudes and health behaviours / beliefs;
• Develop an intervention program that addresses and challenges negative expectations of ageing with the goal of increasing preventive health behaviours in mid-life and older adults.

Commencement:  2011

Completion:   

Robert Cumming, Vasant Hirani, Fiona Blyth, Helen Creasey, David Handelsman, David Le Couteur, Markus Seibel Louise Waite (all University of Sydney), Thomas Travison (Boston University)

CHAMP is one of the world's most comprehensive studies of ageing in men. The study is chiefly concerned with frailty, longevity and the major geriatric medical syndromes of dementia, falls, incontinence and mobility impairment. Between 2005 and 2007, men aged 70 years and over living in the community around Concord Hospital in Sydney were invited to participate in CHAMP. A total of 1705 men were recruited. Eighty per cent of these men were seen again two years later and five year follow-up visits will be completed in 2012. Data from CHAMP showed that men with lower levels of testosterone in their blood tended to be much more frail than men with higher levels of testosterone. Further analysis will look at the relationship between testosterone levels and longevity.   CHAMP includes more than 300 men who came to Australia as migrants from Italy in the 1950s and 1960s. The study found that men born in Italy were much less likely to fall over than men born in Australia. Differences in health according to ethnic background have important implications for planning services for older Australians.  Impaired mobility is a problem for many older people. CHAMP found that slow walking speed was a strong predictor of mortality. This is an important finding that suggests that encouraging older people to walk faster may improve their health.

Yan Yu

Excess body mass has reached epidemic proportions in both developed and developing countries with long-term social and health implications. In the United States, 68% of the adult population currently has a body mass index (BMI) of 25 and greater and is therefore considered as overweight; and the figure for having a BMI of 30 and greater (considered as obese) is 34%. Another dramatic change in recent decades is the increase in educational attainment. The proportion of the American adult population with at least some college education has increased from 12% to 56%. Figures are similar in other industrialised populations.

The prevalence of obesity among those with some college education is higher than that of college graduates, a difference that has been unchanged among men but increased among women since the 1970s. Failing to recognise this difference and lumping the two college groups together has led to biased estimates and spurious trends in previous results.

This project will be expanded to include Australian data and further investigate the period versus cohort patterns of change in the association between education and body mass. Prior research focused on change over time periods, referring to contemporaneous factors such as changes in technology and food preparation as possible explanations of the overweight and obesity epidemic. A cohort analysis brings a fresh perspective to understanding the population heterogeneities, underlying mechanisms, and implications for population health of overweight and obesity.

Commencement:  2011

Completion:   

Peter McDonald, Ariane Utomo

This project, recently published, discusses the trend in labour force participation rates at older ages in Australia. It makes extensive use of the 2006 census to examine who works at older ages and who does not. It discusses the literature in Australia on this topic and examines potential reasons for the very strong increases in participation at older ages.

Commencement:  2011

Completion: 

Julie Byles, Hal Kendig, Lyn Francis, Karla Heese, Catherine Chojenta  

This series of projects uses linked survey (NSW 45 and UP and ALSWH) and administrative datasets (NSW APDC, National Death Index,Medical Benefits Scheme (Medicare), Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). These linked datasets will allow us to investigate the use and impacts of health and aged care services among people with chronic conditions such as arthritis, stroke and diabetes. The major drivers of health service use in relation to these conditions will be examined, including the impact of comorbidities, health behaviours, socio-demographic factors, and the use and impacts of health care innovations. Health care use by people aged 85 years and over will be examined in detail to assess healthcare use by people in this age group, and particularly use of health care services in later life and the period prior to death (which is when most health care costs are likely to be incurred).

Home and community Care (HACC) data have also been linked to NSW 45 and UP study to analyse the use of community services by older people in the community.

Commencement:  2011

Completion: 

Hal Kendig, Colette Browning, Lindy Clemson

Contrary to prevailing negative attitudes towards ageing, a new generation of research is demonstrating that the processes of ageing are amenable to a range of bio-psycho-social influences, with many of them being changeable and hence improvable. Ageing well approaches recognise the potential for older people to manage the negative correlates of ageing, such as chronic illnesses, disability and dependence, in order to optimise outcomes in later life. Healthy lifestyles, including physical and social activity, and healthy eating are central to positive outcomes for older people. In this project we use data gathered since 1994 by the Melbourne Longitudinal Studies on Healthy Ageing program (MELSHA) to examine ageing well in order to inform the development of interventions and services to optimise ageing well. This project examines the predictors and consequences of ageing well as key factors that can be addressed in healthy ageing interventions and services.  It aims to identify: a) lifestyle influences on ageing well; b) trajectories of health and wellbeing in old age; and c) health and disability transition points for targeted interventions. This research will: a) inform the development of new healthy ageing interventions to enhance positive health actions and self care and b) improve service models for older people.  

Commencement:  2011

Completion: 

Richard Burns, Kaarin Anstey

This project seeks to identify components of Mental Capital (MC) which are related to successful and healthy ageing in the older Australian adult population. MC encompasses a person's cognitive and emotional resources and includes their cognitive abilities; their capacity to learn, be flexible and efficient; their sense of vitality and engagement with life; their self-referent attitudes (e.g. sense of mastery and resilience); and their affective experience, and reflects an interaction between genetic endowment and adaptation to life experiences over the life course.

The project aims to:

1. Identify the trajectories of MC throughout adulthood and old age;
2. Identify the protective effects of MC on the development of physical and mental illness; and
3. Demonstrate whether positive psychology interventions which focus on MC components, are efficacious in later life.

Commencement:  2013

Completion: 

Kaarin Anstey, Kerry Sargent-Cox, Jacqui Brewer

The project is a national telephone survey (n=1400) to identify attitudes towards cognitive health across the adult life course (from 20 to 80+ years).  The survey will examine the following research questions:
1) What are people doing for their cognitive health? (behaviours)
2) Why do they think affects / benefits / helps cognitive health? (beliefs)
3) At what age do people start doing something for their cognitive health? (behaviours)
4) What roles do stereotypes and fears of dementia and cognitive ageing play?

Commencement:  February 2013

Completion:  March 2013

Hal Kendig, Kate O'Loughlin, Vanessa Loh

Our current research focus is on analysing Australian longitudinal data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey to examine the extent that individuals engage in productive activities including paid work, volunteering, caregiving, childcare, and domestic work across the lifespan. This research will provide a current measure of the extent of productive activities in the Australian ageing population, and a useful starting point for examining longitudinal models of productive ageing. We are also interested in the health and psycho-social factors that influence individual engagement in productive activities, and the possible outcomes and benefits of remaining actively engaged in productive activities as individuals age. Prof. Anstey and colleagues are investigating the cognitive and sensory measures that predict driving outcomes and driving cessation in older drivers.  A five year validation study of screening measures for older drivers will provide the evidence base on which to decide how to assess the safety of older drivers in the ACT.

Commencement:  2012

Completion: 

Loretti I. Dobrescu, Dimitri Christelis

Using micro data from eleven European countries, we investigate the impact of being socially active on cognition in older age. Cognitive abilities are measured through scores on numeracy, fluency and recall tests. We address the endogeneity of social activities through panel data and instrumental variable methods. We project to find that social activities have an important positive effect on cognition, with the results varying by gender. Fluency is more likely to positively affected females, while numeracy should be more important for males. Finally, recall should be affected in both sexes. We also intend to show that social activities, through their effect on cognition, influence positively households' economic welfare. Thsi research has been written up in a CEPAR Working Paper.

Commencement:  2012

Completion: 2012

Heather Booth, Tim Windsor, Robert Ackland (ANU)

The Social Networks and Ageing Project (SNAP) conducts multidisciplinary research on the role of social connectivity in successful ageing. It examines patterns of online and 'offline' social networking behaviour and their influence on health, retirement and wellbeing. A longitudinal survey of a national sample of 2123 Australians aged 50+  focuses on the nature of the respondents' social networks and activities, distinguishing between family members and friends and between face-to-face and other types of communication, including online social networking, and measures of retirement, health and wellbeing. This rich database is used to explore underlying profile-types of social connectivity and the nature of the relationship between social support and wellbeing in terms of familial relationship, type of activity, duration and frequency of activity, and intensity of relationship. These data permit highly detailed analyses of social support and social networks and their effects on wellbeing. Additionally, the project integrates survey research with data collection from web-based social networking structures using a purpose-written application for Facebook, and examines network structure, social capital and wellbeing.

Commencement:  2010

Completion: 

Hal Kendig, Julie Byles, Kate O'Loughlin, James Nazroo (Manchester University, UK), Vanessa Loh

This research project will examine how life experiences of the baby boom cohort (born 1946‐1950) influence health, productivity, wellbeing, and pension and service us.

The project aims to determine how:

1. Health inequalities and health actions in late middle‐age are influenced by accumulated variations in family, occupational, and economic exposures from childhood onwards.
2. Socially structured life‐course experiences, health outcomes, and health behaviours vary between men and women.
3. Australian and English life outcomes reflect different societal and policy developments since WWII.
4. Migration impacts on life‐course outcomes by comparing native‐born Australians, native‐born English, English migrants to Australia, and other migrants to Australia.

Commencement:  2012

Completion: 

Yan Yu

Widespread weight gain has led to epidemic proportions of excess body mass in the US and elsewhere. Being overweight or obese is associated with a host of fatal and non-fatal diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, gallbladder diseases, osteoarthritis and pulmonary diseases. Controversy remains whether excess fat mass, at the moderate level in particular, elevates mortality at all. One paper based on Yan Yu's doctoral thesis addressed the controversy about whether excess BMI is detrimental to survival in old age.  It has been argued that age is associated with a decline in excess overweight or obese mortality, and an extra amount of fat is protective or at least brings no additional harm to old-age survival. Most prior work compared cross-sectional age groups that belong to a multitude of birth cohorts at survey baseline, and are followed up for mortality over a long period of time. Thus, one cannot discern age patterns that are independent of differences over birth cohort and time period in the BMI-mortality association. The new paper conducted a parametric survival analysis of representative survey data for three cohorts of American men and women born between 1901 and 1957 and observed from 1988 to 2006 under an age-period-cohort framework, and found that mortality differentials strengthen across cohorts but do not decline over age or change across the study period (Yu 2011). As excess overweight or obese mortality has been increasing from earlier to later cohorts, ignoring cohort differences leads to a declining age pattern.

Commencement:  2011

Completion: 

Isabella Dobrescu

Population ageing will create pressure for increased spending, particularly in health care. With escalating health costs, reforms will become necessary to improve long-run financial sustainability.

The project addresses this issue by:

• Simulating the impact of alternative health care reforms on social welfare;
• Evaluating the political feasibility of these health care reforms;
• Analysing the equilibrium of forces that influence the mechanism of voting on health care reforms.

The effect of ageing on political support for health care reforms has deep policy implications, and reform will be needed to maintain sustainability. This project focuses on the political economy underlying the process of reform. Will future voters support such policy reform? Several models will be developed to identify and explain the determinants of the voting mechanism for health care reform, and assess their effect on individual decisions. Political feasibility will be assessed by specifying various policies for model simulation.    

Commencement:  2011

Completion: