47 research outputs found
Education, material condition and physical functioning trajectories in middle-aged and older adults in Central and Eastern Europe: a cross-country comparison
BACKGROUND: Two competing hypotheses, cumulative advantage/disadvantage and age-as-leveller, have been proposed to explain the contradictory findings on socioeconomic differences in health over the lifespan. To test these hypotheses, this investigation examined the influence of educational attainment and material condition on individual trajectories of physical functioning (PF) in unexplored ageing populations in Central and Eastern Europe.
METHODS: 28 783 men and women aged 45–69 years selected from populations in seven Czech towns, Krakow (Poland) and Novosibirsk (Russia). PF was measured by the Physical Functioning Subscale (PF-10) of the Short-Form-36 questionnaire (SF-36) at baseline and three subsequent occasions. The highest educational attainment was self-reported at baseline, and material condition was captured by the sum score of 12 household amenities and assets.
RESULTS: In all cohorts, participants with a university degree had the highest PF-10 score at baseline and slowest rate of decline in the score during follow-up, while the lowest baseline scores and fastest decline rate were found in participants with less than secondary education in all cohorts and in Russians with secondary education. Similar disparities in the baseline PF-10 score and decline rate were observed across tertiles of material condition, but differences in decline rates across the three tertiles among Czechs or between the lower two tertiles among Russians were not statistically significant.
CONCLUSIONS: Disparities in PF by educational attainment and material condition among middle-aged and older adults in Central and Eastern Europe existed at baseline and widened during ∼10 years of follow-up, supporting the cumulative advantage/disadvantage hypothesis
Alcohol Consumption and Longitudinal Trajectories of Physical Functioning in Central and Eastern Europe: A 10-Year Follow-up of HAPIEE Study.
BACKGROUND: Physical functioning (PF) is an essential domain of older persons' health and quality of life. Health behaviors are the main modifiable determinants of PF. Cross-sectionally, alcohol consumption appears to be linked to better PF, but longitudinal evidence is mixed and very little is known about alcohol consumption and longitudinal PF trajectories. METHODS: We conducted longitudinal analyses of 28,783 men and women aged 45-69 years from Novosibirsk (Russia), Krakow (Poland), and seven towns of the Czech Republic. At baseline, alcohol consumption was measured by a graduated frequency questionnaire and problem drinking was evaluated using the CAGE questionnaire. PF was assessed using the Physical Functioning Subscale of the SF-36 instrument at baseline and three subsequent occasions. Growth curve modeling was used to estimate the associations between alcohol consumption and PF trajectories over 10-year follow-up. RESULTS: PF scores declined during follow-up in all three cohorts. Faster decline in PF over time was found in Russian female frequent drinkers, Polish female moderate drinkers, and Polish male regular heavy drinkers, in comparison with regular and/or light-to-moderate drinkers. Nondrinking was associated with a faster decline compared with light drinking only in Russian men. Problem drinking and past drinking were not related to the decline rate of PF. CONCLUSIONS: This large longitudinal study in Central and Eastern European populations with relatively high alcohol intake does not strongly support the existence of a protective effect of alcohol on PF trajectories; if anything, it suggests that alcohol consumption is associated with greater deterioration in PF over time
Burgers' Flows as Markovian Diffusion Processes
We analyze the unforced and deterministically forced Burgers equation in the
framework of the (diffusive) interpolating dynamics that solves the so-called
Schr\"{o}dinger boundary data problem for the random matter transport. This
entails an exploration of the consistency conditions that allow to interpret
dispersion of passive contaminants in the Burgers flow as a Markovian diffusion
process. In general, the usage of a continuity equation , where stands for the
Burgers field and is the density of transported matter, is at variance
with the explicit diffusion scenario. Under these circumstances, we give a
complete characterisation of the diffusive transport that is governed by
Burgers velocity fields. The result extends both to the approximate description
of the transport driven by an incompressible fluid and to motions in an
infinitely compressible medium. Also, in conjunction with the Born statistical
postulate in quantum theory, it pertains to the probabilistic (diffusive)
counterpart of the Schr\"{o}dinger picture quantum dynamics.Comment: Latex fil