The Mental and Physical Health Consequences of Changes in Private Insurance Before and After Early Retirement

A Computational Model of Similarity Analysis in Quality of Life Research: An Example of Studies in Poland

Due to the multidimensional structure of the results of similarity studies, their analysis is often difficult. Therefore, a compact and transparent presentation of these results is essential. The purpose of the present study is to propose a graphical representation of the results of similarity analysis in studies on the quality of life. The results are visualized on specific diagrams (maps), where a large amount of information is presented in a compact form. New similarity maps obtained using a computational method, correspondence analysis, are shown as a convenient tool for comparative studies on the quality of life of different groups of individuals. The usefulness of this approach to the description of changes of the quality of life after the retirement threshold in different domains is demonstrated. The World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF questionnaire was used to evaluate individuals in Poland. By analyzing clusters on the similarity maps, two groups (employees and retirees) were classified according to their quality of life in different domains. By comparing the structures of the classification maps containing the information about the whole system considered, it is clearly seen which factors are important in the comparative studies. For the considered problems, the uncertainty coefficients describing the effect size and preserving the information on the symmetry of the variables that were used for the creation of the contingency tables were evaluated.

Classification Maps in Studies on the Retirement Threshold

The aim of this work is to present new classification maps in health informatics and to show that they are useful in data analysis. A statistical method, correspondence analysis, has been applied for obtaining these maps. This approach has been applied to studies on expectations and worries related to the retirement threshold. For this purpose two questionnaires formulated by ourselves have been constructed. Groups of individuals and their answers to particular questions are represented by points in the classification maps. The distribution of these points reflects psychological attitudes of the considered population. In particular, we compared structures of the maps searching for factors such as gender, marital status, kind of work, economic situation, and intellectual activity related to the attendance the University of the Third Age, which are essential at the retirement threshold. Generally, in Polish society, retirement is evaluated as a positive experience and the majority of retirees do not want to return to their professional work. This result is independent of the kind of work and of the gender.

Structural Social Support and Changes in Depression During the Retirement Transition: “I Get by With a Little Help from My Friends”

Objectives

This study evaluated whether (a) retirement was associated with increased depressive symptoms, (b) four sources social support were associated with decreased depressive symptoms, and (c) whether the relationship between retirement and depressive symptoms varied across four sources social support.

Method

Health and Retirement Study data were used to assess whether four measures of structural support moderated the association between transitioning to full retirement (relative to remaining in full-time work) and symptoms of depression.

Results

Results from two-stage mixed-effects multilevel models indicated (a) on average retirement was associated with a small but significant increase in depressive symptoms after adjusting for preretirement social support, (b) on average, social support not associated with changes in symptoms of depression, but (c) social support from friends moderates the association between retirement and symptoms of depression such that at low levels of social support, retirement was associated with a sizeable increase in depressive symptoms, but this association decreased as level of social support from friends increased.

Discussion

Results suggest people with low levels of social support may benefit from actively cultivating friendships in retirement to help mitigate some of deleterious effects of retirement.

Causal effects of informal care and health on falls and other accidents among the elderly population in China

PURPOSE

This article analyzes the causal effects of informal care, mental health, and physical health on falls and other accidents (e.g., traffic accidents) among elderly people. We also examine if there are heterogeneous impacts on elderly of different gender, urban status, and past accident history.

METHODS

To purge potential reversal causal effects, e.g., past accidents induce more future informal care, we use two-stage least squares to identify the impacts. We use longitudinal data from a representative national China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study of people aged 45 and older in China. A total of 3935 respondents with two-wave data are included in our study. Each respondent is interviewed to measure health status and report their accident history. Mental health is assessed using CES-D questions.

RESULTS

Our findings indicate that while informal care decreased the occurrence of accidents, poor health conditions increase the occurrence of accidents. We also find heterogeneous impacts on the occurrence of accidents, varying by gender, urban status, and past accident history.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest the following three policy implications. First, policy makers who aim to decrease accidents should take informal care of elders into account. Second, ease of birth policy and postponed retirement policy are urgently needed to meet the demands of informal care. Third, medical policies should attach great importance not only to physical health but also mental health of elderly parents especially for older people with accident history.