ArticlePreventive medicine2022
Purpose in life and 8-year mortality by gender and race/ethnicity among older adults in the U.S.
Article in Preventive medicine, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Purpose in life and mortality: A meta-analysis of the published literature and individual-participant data of 488,765 participants followed for up to 32 years.Psychological medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Purpose in life and stress: An individual-participant meta-analysis of 16 samples.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Pooled it
- Traditional Mediterranean Lifestyle: From a Heritage to a Legacy as an Inspirational Roadmap to a New Era.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Review
- Black-White Differences in Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) Deserts: Implications for Unmet Care Needs.Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · 2025Article
- The role of purpose in life in healthy aging: implications for the Semmelweis Study and the Semmelweis-EUniWell Workplace Health Promotion Model Program.GeroScience · 2025Review
- Identifying childhood correlates of adult purpose and meaning across 22 countries (Global Flourishing Study).Npj mental health research · 2025Article
- Meaningfulness and mortality: exploring the sense of coherence in Eastern Finnish men.Scandinavian journal of public health · 2025Article
- Volunteering and Risk of Heart Attack in Later Life: The Moderating Role of Purpose in Life?Research on aging · 2025Article
- Meaning in life and all-cause and cause-specific mortality in the UK Biobank.Journal of psychosomatic research · 2025Article
- Contributing to 'a sense of purpose' - Evaluating consumer recovery progress after attending a therapeutic-recreation intervention programme: A quantitative analysis.The International journal of social psychiatry · 2024Article
- The shifts in intergenerational relations in Cameroon and their potential impact on the health of older adults.BMJ global health · 2024Article
- Healthy Eating as Potential Mediator of Inverse Association between Purpose in Life and Waist Circumference: Emerging Evidence from US and Chilean Cohorts.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Self-Rated Health and Mortality: Moderation by Purpose in Life.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Purpose in Life and Risk of Falls: A Meta-Analysis of Cross-Sectional and Prospective Associations.Gerontology & geriatric medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
We examined the associations between a sense of purpose and all-cause mortality by gender and race/ethnicity groups. Data were from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative cohort study of U.S. adults aged >50 (n = 13,159). Sense of purpose was self-reported at baseline (2006/2008), and risk of all-cause mortality was assessed over an 8-year follow-up period. We also formally tested for potential effect modification by gender and race/ethnicity. We observed the associations between higher purpose and lower all-cause mortality risk across all gender and race/ethnicity groups. There was modest evidence that the highest level of purpose (versus lowest quartile) was associated with even lower risk of all-cause mortality among women (risk ratio = 0.66, 95% confidence interval: 0.56, 0.77) compared to men (risk ratio = 0.80, 95% confidence interval: 0.69, 0.93; p-value for multiplicative effect modification =0.07). However, we observed no evidence of effect modification by race/ethnicity. Having a higher sense of purpose appears protective against all-cause mortality regardless of gender and race/ethnicity. Purpose, a potentially modifiable factor, might be a health asset across diverse populations.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.