Ageism, Healthy Life Expectancy and Population Ageing: How Are They Related?

Alana Officer,Paul Nash,Mira Leonie Schneiders,Jotheeswaran Amuthavalli Thiyagarajan,Vânia De La Fuente-Núñez

doi:10.3390/ijerph17093159

Abstract

Evidence shows that ageism negatively impacts the health of older adults. However, estimates of its prevalence are lacking. This study aimed to estimate the global prevalence of ageism towards older adults and to explore possible explanatory factors. Data were included from 57 countries that took part in Wave 6 of the World Values Survey. Multilevel Latent Class Analysis was performed to identify distinct classes of individuals and countries. Individuals were classified as having high, moderate or low ageist attitudes; and countries as being highly, moderately or minimally ageist, by aggregating individual responses. Individual-level (age, sex, education and wealth) and contextual-level factors (healthy life expectancy, population health status and proportion of the population aged over 60 years) were examined as potential explanatory factors in multinomial logistic regression. From the 83,034 participants included, 44%, 32% and 24% were classified as having low, moderate and high ageist attitudes, respectively. From the 57 countries, 34 were classified as moderately or highly ageist. The likelihood of an individual or a country being ageist was significantly reduced by increases in healthy life expectancy and the proportion of older people within a country. Certain personal characteristics—younger age, being male and having lower education—were significantly associated with an increased probability of an individual having high ageist attitudes. At least one in every two people included in this study had moderate or high ageist attitudes. Despite the issue’s magnitude and negative health impacts, ageism remains a neglected global health issue.

Highlights

To increase our knowledge in this area and to overcome the limitations of previous research, this study aimed to examine the global prevalence of ageism using a large population sample, nine different items and multi-level latent class analysis as the analytical strategy
This study used the largest sample to date to examine ageism and its relation to various personal, demographic and development factors, including sex, age, education and healthy life expectancy (HLE)
This study shows that ageism is highly prevalent across the world, with the highest prevalence observed in poorer countries

Summary

Introduction

Commonly held perceptions and assumptions about older people and ageing pose serious challenges to developing an adequate societal response to population ageing. Older age is generally typecast as a period of frailty and inevitable decline in capacity, with the depiction of older people as a homogeneous group that is care dependent, burdensome on health and social care spending, and a hindrance to economic growth. This is inconsistent with the diversity in health and functioning that is seen in older age [2]

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