ArticleBMC medicine2025
Frailty-free life expectancy and its association with socio-economic characteristics: an analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing cohort study.
Article in BMC medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Interplay between frailty and cardiometabolic disorders: from pathophysiology to clinical implications.Cardiovascular diabetology · 2025Pooled it
- Serum metabolomic signatures associated with frailty-related phenotypes in a cohort of older people.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Frailty, trajectories of frailty, and cognitive impairment: evidence from five longitudinal cohort studies.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Disability free life expectancy: a simulation study of scenarios to extend healthy years and reduce inequalities.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Bidirectional transitions of frailty states among middle-aged and older adults: a longitudinal cohort analysis using a multi-state Markov model based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study.Innovation in aging · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundFrailty is more prevalent in socio-economically disadvantaged groups; however, little is known about how this translates to differences in the number of years people live with and without frailty. We investigate differences in frailty-free and frail life expectancies among population groups stratified by wealth, area deprivation, education and marital status.
methodsThe English Longitudinal Study of Ageing cohort study was used to follow the frailty trajectories of 15,003 individuals over 18 years. A multi-state model assessed the risk of transitioning between frailty states and death based on socio-economic characteristics. These risks were translated into state-specific life expectancies.
resultsWealth had the strongest association with frailty-free and frail life expectancies. Increased wealth, reduced deprivation, higher educational attainment and marriage all correlate with increased frailty-free life expectancies and reduced frail life expectancies. At age 50, the wealthiest population quintile can expect to live 11.1 [10.1-12.1] years (women) and 9.8 [8.8-10.8] years (men) longer frailty-free than the poorest population quintile. The wealthiest quintile live less than half the number of years with frailty than the poorest quintile. There is no difference in frailty-free life expectancy between the poorest men and women; however, the wealthiest women have longer frailty-free life expectancies than the wealthiest men.
conclusionsLarge inequalities in frailty-free and frail life expectancies exist across socio-economic groups, with wealth and area deprivation the most important socio-economic determinants. Narrowing these inequalities may extend frailty-free life expectancies more for women than men, suggesting strategies to reduce disparities should consider both socio-economic factors and gender. Care policies should account for the geographical clustering of socio-economically disadvantaged populations. Reducing socio-economic inequalities could increase frailty-free life expectancies and reduce health and social care costs.
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