Self-Rated Health and Living Status Across Different Ages at Later Life: A Population Study in Hong Kong

TL;DR

This study explores how living arrangements affect self-rated health among older adults in Hong Kong, finding that living alone improves health ratings for those aged 81 and above.

Contribution

The study reveals age-specific differences in how living arrangements influence self-rated health, particularly highlighting a shift in benefit for older adults aged 81 and above.

Findings

Older adults aged 51-80 report better self-rated health when living with others.

Those aged 81 and above show significantly better self-rated health when living alone.

Self-rated health scores declined from 2019 to 2023, possibly due to pandemic effects.

Abstract

There is growing attention to the relationship of self-rated health (SRH) with living arrangements, especially when issues like social isolation are brought into the limelight, necessitating urgent social policy interventions. This study is a part of a population-level biannual patient experience survey conducted in Hong Kong to study the relationship between SRH and living arrangements across older age groups. Hong Kong residents, aged 18 or above, who stayed in a public hospital for at least a night, were contactable within two weeks after discharge, and were able to communicate in either Cantonese, English, or Mandarin, were eligible. A total of 32,562 participants, aged 51 to 109, were included from five waves of surveys between 2013 and 2023. Despite the mean of SRH scores peaking at 3.27 in 2019, it experienced a significant decline in 2023, reaching 3.03, a potential pandemic aftermath. Delving into SRH and living status, ANOVA results showed significant differences in SRH among older adults of different living arrangements. Tukey’s HSD tests showed older adults aged 51-60 (means differences = -4.42, p-value = 0.00), 61-70 (means differences = -1.98, p-value = 0.00), and 71-80 (means differences = -1.39, p-value = 0.07), reported a significantly better SRH when they live with others; whilst among those who aged 81 or above, living alone is significantly associated with a better SRH (means differences = +2.62, p-value = 0.00). Future research could investigate the mechanisms underlying such discrepancies, for instance, how living and caregiving arrangements constitute older adults’ subjective well-being.