Abstract
Older adults with multimorbidity are susceptible to shingles due to deterioration of immune function related to coexisting chronic disorders and immunological change. Although the association between individual chronic diseases and incident shingles has been documented, little is known about the effect of having multiple conditions on the risk for developing a new case of the disease. Multimorbidity is a normal condition with advanced aging. This paper examines risk of shingles onset associated with multimorbidity defined as having one or more chronic diseases including hypertension, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, lung disease, arthritis, and stroke) among older American. Data for this study come from the 1992 -2016 Health and Retirement Study. The study finds that risk for onset of shingles linearly increases with number of chronic disorders when age, gender, and race/ethnicity were adjusted (adjusted OR: 1.58, 95% CI; 1.37, 1.80 for those with 1 chronic condition vs adjusted OR: 3.43, 95% CI: 2.21, 5.53 for those with 6 conditions). The risks for multimorbidity were little changed after additional adjustments for socioeconomic status and health behaviors. The effect of multimorbidity on developing shingles is greater among young-old adults in their 50s than among the older-old adults aged 80 and higher. Our finding challenges the single-disease framework that is often used in previous studies examining risk factors for shingles. Our finding highlights the need for primary prevention and treatment of multimorbidity for reduction of shingles cases among older adults, especially young old adults in 50s.
Highlights
IntroductionThis study investigates to which extent wealth possibly varies in its association with health, frailty as well-described phenotype in aging, and memory as precondition of successful everyday functioning, across different ages
We used data from the Takashimadaira study, a longitudinal cohort study for older people aimed to realize dementia friendly communities in a metropolitan area, and we examined whether the cognitive decline related to frequency of interaction with others in older peoples
Results showed that the cognitive decline associated with the less frequency of interaction with others, i.e. social isolation
Summary
This study investigates to which extent wealth possibly varies in its association with health, frailty as well-described phenotype in aging, and memory as precondition of successful everyday functioning, across different ages. Data come from recent waves (2013/15) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, with 48,209 respondents from 16 European countries and Israel, aged 50–104 years. In fully adjusted models, being one decile lower in the wealth distribution was associated with 13.4 % higher probability of being frail Interactions between age and wealth rank indicated least risk of both frailty and memory impairment for wealthier individuals between ages 75 and 80. Wealth is associated with the likelihood of being frail or memory-impaired in a large sample of older respondents from Europe and Israel. The fact that wealth is strongest associated with health between ages 75
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