Background. Socio-economic inequalities in health are found across the entire lifespan. This study investigates to which extent wealth possibly varies in its association with health, particularly frailty as well-described phenotype in aging, and memory as precondition of successful everyday functioning, across different ages. Method. Data come from recent waves (2013/15) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, with 48,209 respondents from 16 European countries and Israel, aged 50–104 years. Household wealth information was adjusted for purchasing power, household size, and percentile-ranked for each country. Frailty was assessed using the adapted Fried criteria. Memory impairment was indicated if respondents remembered ≤1 word of a ten-word list after some delay. We subsequently controlled for socio-demographic characteristics and education in logistic regressions testing interactions between age and wealth rank. Results. In fully adjusted models, being one decile lower in the wealth distribution was associated with 13.4 % higher probability of being frail (Coeff. -1.26; CI -1.38, -1.14), and 8.2 % higher probability of being memory-impaired (Coeff. -0.78; CI -0.88, -0.68). Interactions between age and wealth rank indicated least risk of both frailty and memory impairment for wealthier individuals between ages 75 and 80. Discussion. Wealth is associated with the likelihood of being frail or memory-impaired in a large sample of older respondents from Europe and Israel. The fact that wealth is strongest associated with health between ages 75 and 80 suggests that individuals are particularly benefitting from socioeconomic resources at advanced older ages. Possible selection and underlying mechanisms are discussed.
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机译：背景。在整个生命周期中都发现了健康方面的社会经济不平等。这项研究调查了财富在多大程度上可能与健康相关联变化，尤其是衰弱，衰老中表述清楚的表型以及在不同年龄段中将记忆作为成功日常运作的前提的条件。方法。数据来自最近一波（2013/15）欧洲健康，老龄化和退休调查，来自16个欧洲国家和以色列的48209名受访者年龄在50-104岁之间。调整了家庭财富信息，以根据购买力，家庭规模和每个国家/地区的百分数排名。使用适应的弗里德准则评估脆弱性。如果受访者在一段时间延迟后记得十个单词表中的≤1个单词，则表明存在记忆障碍。随后我们控制了社会人口特征和逻辑回归教育，以测试年龄和财富等级之间的相互作用。结果。在完全调整的模型中，财富分配降低十分位数会导致虚弱的几率高出13.4％（Coeff。-1.26; CI -1.38，-1.14），而记忆力受损的可能性高8.2％（Coeff。 -0.78； CI -0.88，-0.68）。年龄与财富等级之间的相互作用表明，年龄介于75至80岁之间的较富有的人，脆弱和记忆障碍的风险最小。在大量来自欧洲和以色列的较早受访者中，财富与脆弱或记忆力受损的可能性有关。财富与75至80岁之间的健康最相关的事实表明，个人在老年人中特别受益于社会经济资源。讨论了可能的选择和潜在机制。
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