Differences in physical aging measured by walking speed: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

BMC Geriatrics

Table 3 Growth curve models for longitudinal changes in men’s walking speed addressing differences by education (Model 1), occupation (Model2), regional wealth (Model 3) and all three social factors (Model 4)

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4
	Estimate (SE)	Estimate (SE)	Estimate (SE)	Estimate (SE)
Fixed Effects
Intercept	0.143 (0.091)	0.052 (0.089)	−0.073 (0.091)	0.210 (0.090) *
Age	−0.010 (0.001) ***	−0.010 (0.001) ***	−0.012 (0.001) ***	−0.009 (0.001) ***
Age²	−0.0004 (0.000) ***	−0.0004 (0.000) ***	−0.0004 (0.000) ***	−0.0004 (0.000) ***
higher education	0.131 (0.007) ***			0.102 (0.008) ***
higher occupation		0.105 (0.007) ***		0.067 (0.008) ***
wealthier region			0.025 (0.007) ***	0.007 (0.007)
Age x higher education	−0.0001 (0.001)			0.001 (0.001)
Age x higher occupation		−0.002 (0.001) **		−0.003 (0.001) **
Age x wealthier region			−0.0008 (0.001)	−0.001 (0.001)
Random Variance
Intercept	0.032 (0.18)	0.033 (0.18)	0.035 (0.19)	0.031 (0.18)
Linear Slope	0.0001 (0.01)	0.0001 (0.01)	0.0001 (0.01)	0.00009 (0.01)
Residual	0.025 (0.16)	0.025 (0.16)	0.025 (0.16)	0.025 (0.15)
AIC:	−4620.1	−4733.4	−4504.1	−4718.5
logLik:	2326.1	2382.7	2268.0	2379.3

Note: Significance levels: * p ≤0.05; ** p ≤0.01; *** p ≤0.001
Age was centered at 70 years; we control for height, weight and survey wave
Results indicate a decline of the occupational advantage (Model 2) with higher age; no significant regional wealth effect on individual aging; considering all three social factors only the decline of occupational advantage with higher age is significant

ISSN: 1471-2318