ArticleSSM - population health2019
Trends in grip strength: Age, period, and cohort effects on grip strength in older adults from Germany, Sweden, and Spain.
Article in SSM - population health, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Factors associated with handgrip strength across the life course: A systematic review.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2024Pooled it
- Reference values for handgrip strength in Europe: analysis of individual participant data from 27 countries.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Serum trace element levels and their associations with handgrip strength: a cross-sectional study among non-diabetic older adults in Germany.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Secular trends in grip strength among Korean adults according to socioeconomic factors: the 2014-2022 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.Epidemiology and health · 2025Article
- Cohort Differences in Physical Health and Disability in the United States and Europe.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2024Article
- Generational differences in physical health and disability in the United States and Europe.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- Trends in Activity Limitations From an International Perspective: Differential Changes Between Age Groups Across 30 Countries.Journal of aging and health · 2023Article
- Functional Capacity and Difficulties in Activities of Daily Living From a Cross-National Perspective.Journal of aging and health · 2023Article
- Grip strength values and cut-off points based on over 200,000 adults of the German National Cohort - a comparison to the EWGSOP2 cut-off points.Age and ageing · 2023Article
- Trends in activities of daily living disability among Chinese older adults from 1998 to 2018: an age-period-cohort analysis.European journal of ageing · 2022Article
- Compression and Expansion of Morbidity—Secular Trends Among Cohorts of the Same AgeDeutsches Arzteblatt international · 2022Review
- Secular Improvements in Cognitive Aging: Contribution of Education, Health, and Routine Activities.Journal of aging and health · 2022Article
- Getting a Grip on Secular Changes: Age-Period-Cohort Modeling of Grip Strength in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2022Article
- Health and study dropout: health aspects differentially predict attrition.BMC medical research methodology · 2022Article
- Socioeconomic differences in handgrip strength and its association with measures of intrinsic capacity among older adults in six middle-income countries.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Article
- Decline of depressive symptoms in Europe: differential trends across the lifespan.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2021Article
- Article
- The Influence of Interpersonal Behaviors and Population Density on Grip Strength of Elderly People: An Analysis of the Direct vs. Indirect Effects via Social Participation.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
- Norm Values of Muscular Strength Across the Life Span in a Healthy Swiss Population: The COmPLETE Study.Sports healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Grip strength is seen as an objective indicator of morbidity and disability. However, empirical knowledge about trends in grip strength remains incomplete. As trends can occur due to effects of aging, time periods and birth cohorts, we used hierarchical age-period-cohort models to estimate and disentangle putative changes in grip strength. To do this, we used population-based data of older adults, aged 50 years and older, from Germany, Sweden, and Spain from the SHARE study (N = 22500) that encompassed multiple waves of first-time respondents. We found that there were contrasting changes for different age groups: Grip strength improved over time periods for the oldest old, whereas it stagnated or even decreased in younger older adults. Importantly, we found strong birth cohort effects on grip strength: In German older adults, birth cohorts in the wake of the Second World War exhibited increasingly reduced grip strength, and in Spanish older adults, the last birth cohort born after 1960 experienced a sharp drop in grip strength. Therefore, while grip strength increased in the oldest old aged 80 years and older, grip strength stagnated or decreased in comparatively younger cohorts, who might thus be at risk to experience more morbidity and disability in the future than previous generations. Future studies should investigate factors that contribute to this trend, the robustness of the observed birth cohort effects, and the generalizability of our results to other indicators of functional health.
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