Dissecting the Racial/Ethnic Disparity in Frailty in a Nationally Representative Cohort Study with Respect to Health, Income, and Measurement

Abstract

Background

Racial/ethnic frailty prevalence disparities have been documented. Better elucidating how these operate may inform interventions to eliminate them. We aimed to determine whether physical frailty phenotype (PFP) prevalence disparities (i) are explained by health aspects, (ii) vary by income, or (iii) differ in degree across individual PFP criteria.

Methods

Data came from the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study baseline evaluation. The study sample (n = 7,439) included persons in all residential settings except nursing homes. Logistic regression was used to achieve aims (i)–(iii) listed above. In (i), health aspects considered were body mass index (BMI) status and number of chronic diseases. Analyses incorporated sampling weights and adjusted for sociodemographic factors.

Results

Comparisons are versus non-Hispanic whites: Non-Hispanic blacks (odds ratio [OR] = 1.46, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.21–1.76) and Hispanics (1.56, 1.20–2.03) continued to have higher odds of frailty after accounting for BMI status and number of chronic diseases. Non-Hispanic blacks had elevated odds of frailty in all income quartiles, including the highest (OR = 2.19, 1.24–3.397). Racial/ethnic disparities differed considerably across frailty criteria, ranging from a twofold increase in odds of slowness to a 25%–30% decrease in odds of self-reported exhaustion.

Conclusions

BMI and disease burden do not explain racial/ethnic frailty disparities. Black–white disparities are not restricted to low-income groups. Racial/ethnic differences vary considerably by NHATS PFP criteria. Our findings support the need to better understand mechanisms underlying elevated frailty burden in older non-Hispanic black and Hispanic Americans, how phenotypic measures capture frailty in racial/ethnic subgroups and, potentially, how to create assessments more comparable by race/ethnicity.

Prevalence of Frailty in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Background: Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have experienced a rapid increase in their proportion of older people. This region is marked by a high prevalence of chronic diseases and disabilities among aging adults. Frailty appears in the context of LAC negatively affecting quality of life among many older people.

Aim: To investigate the prevalence of frailty among community-dwelling older people in LAC through a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Methods: A literature search was performed in indexed databases and in the grey literature. Studies investigating the prevalence of frailty with representative samples of community-dwelling older people in Latin America and the Caribbean were retrieved. Independent investigators carried out the study selection process and the data extraction. A meta-analysis and meta-regression were performed using STATA 11 software. The systematic review was registered at the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews under the number CRD42014015203.

Results: A total of 29 studies and 43,083 individuals were included in the systematic review. The prevalence of frailty was 19.6% (95% CI: 15.4-24.3%) in the investigated region, with a range of 7.7% to 42.6% in the studies reviewed. The year of data collection influenced the heterogeneity between the studies.

Conclusion: Frailty is very common among older people in LAC. As a result, countries in the region need to adapt their health and social care systems to demands of an older population.

Frailty in Older Adults: A Nationally Representative Profile in the United States

Abstract

Background: Frailty assessment provides a means of identifying older adults most vulnerable to adverse outcomes. Attention to frailty in clinical practice is more likely with better understanding of its prevalence and associations with patient characteristics. We sought to provide national estimates of frailty in older people.

Methods: A popular, validated frailty phenotype proposed by Fried and colleagues was applied to 7,439 participants in the 2011 baseline of the National Health and Aging Trends Study, a national longitudinal study of persons aged 65 and older. All measures drew on a 2-hour in-person interview. Weighted estimates of frailty prevalence were obtained.

Results: Fifteen percent (95% CI: 14%, 16%) of the older non-nursing home population is frail, and 45% is prefrail (95% CI: 44%, 47%). Frailty is more prevalent at older ages, among women, racial and ethnic minorities, those in supportive residential settings, and persons of lower income. Independently of these characteristics, frailty prevalence varies substantially across geographic regions. Chronic disease and disability prevalence increase steeply with frailty. Among the frail, 42% were hospitalized in the previous year, compared to 22% of the prefrail and 11% of persons considered robust. Hip, back, and heart surgery in the last year were associated with frailty. Over half of frail persons had a fall in the previous year.

Conclusions: Our findings support the importance of frailty in late-life health etiology and potential value of frailty as a marker of risk for adverse health outcomes and as a means of identifying opportunities for intervention in clinical practice and public health policy.

Keywords: Epidemiology; Health disparities; Public health.

© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Prevalence of frailty in community-dwelling older persons: a systematic review

Abstract

Objectives: To systematically compare and pool the prevalence of frailty, including prefrailty, reported in community-dwelling older people overall and according to sex, age, and definition of frailty used.

Design: Systematic review of the literature using the key words elderly, aged, frailty, prevalence, and epidemiology.

Setting: Cross-sectional data from community-based cohorts.

Participants: Community-dwelling adults aged 65 and older.

Measurements: In the studies that were found, frailty and prefrailty were measured according to physical phenotype and broad phenotype, the first defining frailty as a purely physical condition and the second also including psychosocial aspects.

Results: Reported prevalence in the community varies enormously (range 4.0-59.1%). The overall weighted prevalence of frailty was 10.7% (95% confidence interval (CI) = 10.5-10.9; 21 studies; 61,500 participants). The weighted prevalence was 9.9% for physical frailty (95% CI = 9.6-10.2; 15 studies; 44,894 participants) and 13.6% for the broad phenotype of frailty (95% CI = 13.2-14.0; 8 studies; 24,072 participants) (chi-square (χ(2) ) = 217.7, degrees of freedom (df)=1, P < .001). Prevalence increased with age (χ(2) = 6067, df = 1, P < .001) and was higher in women (9.6%, 95% CI = 9.2-10.0%) than in men (5.2%, 95% CI = 4.9-5.5%; χ(2) = 298.9 df = 1, P < .001).

Conclusion: Frailty is common in later life, but different operationalization of frailty status results in widely differing prevalence between studies. Improving the comparability of epidemiological and clinical studies constitutes an important step forward.

© 2012, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation © 2012, The American Geriatrics Society.