By OPEN MINDS Circle
Between 2003 and 2017, Vermont had the most factors associated with ‘successful aging’, followed by Hawaii, Iowa, Colorado, and New Hampshire. During this time, Louisiana had the fewest factors associated with successful aging, followed by Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Mississippi. In terms of the overall rankings between 2003 to 2017, South Carolina, Iowa, Arizona, and Delaware had the greatest improvement.
The five critical domains that support successful population aging include: productivity and engagement, security, equity, cohesion, and well-being. The factors included in each domain are as follows:
- Productivity and engagement includes: labor force participation, participating in community organizations, participating in service/civic organizations, and average hours volunteering.
- Security includes: pension wealth, gross state product, poverty, food security, violent crime rates, and property crime rates.
- Equity includes: state income inequality, education tertiary, and high school completion rates.
- Cohesion includes: frequency of eating dinner with household, frequency of talking with neighbors, and frequency of doing favors for neighbors.
- Well-being includes: age-standardized mortality rates, physical health, and mental health.
These findings were presented in “The Milbank Quarterly Article: A U.S. State Index of Successful Aging – Differences Between States and Over Time,” by David H. Rehkopf, Frank F. Furstenberg, Holly Elser, Christian Jackson, Nicole Levy, John W. Rowe, and The Aging Society Research Network. The researchers modified an index previously used to assess adaptation to successful aging in developed countries. The researchers then analyzed data from multiple sources for all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia from 2003 to 2017, and applied this modified index to the states. The goal was to measure five distinct domains that define successful population aging in the U.S., and explore how individual U.S. state rankings changed over time from 2003 to 2017.
When looking at the domains for successful aging, there were variations by state. With regard to security, Wisconsin and Michigan were the highest performing states. On the measure of cohesion, Iowa and Missouri were the highest performing states. For the productivity and engagement domains, the Midwest U.S. states were the highest performing states. In the equity domain, equitable states were found in all regions of the U.S.
For more information, contact: David H. Rehkopf, Sc.D., Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, of Medicine, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 120, Room 160, Stanford, California 94305-2047; Email: drehkopf@stanford.edu; Website: https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/david-rehkopf