We will study change in personality and psychological well-being, and the relationship between such change and physical health, as assessed by self-reports, daily cortisol levels, and mortality. Personality and well being variables can shape the changes in health that mark older age, yet these are often as changing and dynamic as health itself. Thus, studies of change offer an opportunity to gain greater understanding of the psychosocial pathways that lead to good or bad health. We will study change that unfolds over years (Aim 1), as well as change that unfolds over days (Aim 3). In a new aim, we will study whether changes in personality and well-being predict mortality (Aim 2). To do this, we will use existing longitudinal data from the past 40 years of the VA Normative Aging Study (MAS), new data we have collected on these men and their wives in Years 1-5, and new data that we will collect in Years 6-10.
For Aims 2 and 3, we will also utilize the MIDUS II study (P01-AG020166), providing comparisons with national data. We will focus on 3 aims: 1) Model intraindividual change in personality, well-being, and physical health overtime, and examine predictors of change, using individual growth models and coupled-change growth models. 2) Model time to mortality using personality and well-being and their interactions with contextual factors. As of June, 2004, 45 percent of the NAS participants have died, permitting prediction of mortality from hazard rate models. We will also bring together Aims 1 and 2 by using change in personality and well-being to predict mortality. 3) Model daily variation in affect, memory, and cortisol as a function of daily stressors and global personality and wellbeing. We will use """"""""measurement bursts"""""""" of diary studies nested within our longitudinal study to better understand the interplay between daily experience, well-being, personality and biological indicators of stress (cortisol) in older adults. Findings from this study will illuminate how changes in psychosocial variables-at both the multi-year and daily levels-lead to good health, bad health, and mortality.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 89 publications
