ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2021
Cognitively Intact and Happy Life Expectancy in the United States.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Regional disparities in cognitive life expectancy: The role of birth and current residence in the United States.Health & place · 2025Article
- Does subjective life expectancy matter in purchasing life insurance among middle-aged and older adult? Evidence from China.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Life expectancy with and without cognitive impairment among Chilean older adults: results of the National Survey of Health (2003, 2009 and 2016).BMC geriatrics · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesWe examined the number of years to be lived with and without cognitive impairment and with high self-assessed quality of life (i.e., happiness) among a nationally representative sample of Americans aged 65 years and older. Two key questions are addressed: Can people have a high quality of life despite being cognitively impaired? Which is longer: happy life expectancy or cognitively intact life expectancy?
methodData from nine waves of the Health and Retirement Study (1998-2014) were used to estimate transition probabilities into and out of cognitively intact/impaired-un/happy states, as well as to death. Recently extended Bayesian multistate life table methods were used to estimate age-specific cognitively intact and happy life expectancy net of sex, race/ethnicity, education, and birth cohort.
resultsHappiness and cognitive impairment were shown to coexist in both the gross cross-tabulated data and in the life tables. Happy life expectancy is approximately 25% longer than cognitively intact life expectancy at age 65 years, and by age 85, happy life expectancy is roughly double cognitively intact life expectancy, on average. DISCUSSION: Lack of cognitive impairment is not a necessary condition for happiness. In other words, people can have a high quality of life despite being cognitively impaired.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.