Health and social predictors of mortality in an elderly Chinese cohort

A total of 1,054 Hong Kong Chinese subjects aged 70 years or over were recruited into a cohort study to investigate the relation between social support and health outcomes. More than 30 social, health, and behavioral characteristics were recorded as baseline information when the study began in 1985. Mortality data were obtained during a 2-year follow-up. Logistic regression analyses were used to determine the roles of these variables in predicting mortality. The mortality patterns of Hong Kong and of the studied cohort closely resemble that of Western developed countries with cancer, heart disease, and cerebrovascular diseases as the leading causes of death. Besides sex and place of residence (whether living in the community or in homes for the elderly), the independent predictors of mortality included five baseline variables: being single or widowed, limited ability in activities of daily living, smoking habit, low body mass index, and poor self-evaluated health status. Subjects with at least three of these predictors had a relative risk of 3.9 (95% confidence interval 2.4-6.2) compared with those with zero to two of these characteristics.