“Researchers ID 8 social factors that lead to early death in seniors”

“Researchers ID 8 social factors that lead to early death in seniors,” by John Roszkowski, McKnight’s LTC News

“The researchers studied 8,250 older adults ages 65 and older over a four-year period. At the end of the four-year study period, 22% of those individuals had died. Based on 183 possible predictors, the researchers developed a Social Frailty Index including age, gender and eight social factors that contributed to early death: poor neighborhood cleanliness, low perceived control over financial situation, meeting with children less than yearly, not working for pay, not active with children, not volunteering, feeling isolated, and being treated with less courtesy or respect.”

 

LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform:

Focus on so-called social determinants of health is intended to justify spending government medical money—Medicare and Medicaid—on non-medical “social” needs. But once public policy starts down that path, where does it end? Need is unlimited whereas the ability and willingness to satisfy need is severely limited. Scarcity is the essential principle of economics. The essential principle of politics is “ignore the essential principle of economics,” as Thomas Sowell brilliantly observed.