Revisiting reciprocal links between well-being and functioning in aging: A STARTS and constrained modeling approach

Abstract

In aging models, well-being and functioning are two pillars that are closely intertwined. Given older adults’ susceptibility to compromised health, understanding whether well-being improvements could enhance future functioning or vice versa may be important for promoting healthy aging. However, few empirical studies have examined these reciprocal relationships over long periods using representative older adult samples and longitudinal models designed to infer causality. We used 12 years of panel data from older U.S. adults (National Health and Aging Trends Study; N = 12,427) to examine within-person reciprocal effects between well-being (emotional well-being, purpose) and functioning (self-reported health, memory). We employed variations on the Stable Trait, Autoregressive Trait, State (STARTS) model for each variable to disentangle between-person stable trait and/or occasion-specific state variances. We found very high within-person stability for well-being and functioning variables and little evidence for reciprocal effects over time. The robustness of these results and their sensitivity to different assumptions were assessed by comparing simpler models. Our findings underscore the utility of sophisticated longitudinal modeling in aging research and contribute to theoretical discussions on the causal relationship between well-being and functioning.

Plain language summary

In older adulthood, well-being and healthy functioning are essential for aging well. However, it is necessary to clarify how these aspects influence each other, such as whether being happy makes people healthier or vice versa. The current study examined the reciprocal link between well-being (emotional well-being, purpose) and functioning (self-rated health and memory) for the older adults. We analyzed 12 years of data from more than 12,000 older adults aged 65 or older in the U.S., using sophisticated longitudinal models that better isolate within-person systematic changes. Our results showed that individuals' health and well-being stayed very stable over the years, and there was limited evidence that changes in one led to changes in the other. Our work contributes to ongoing discussion about causality in aging literature and offers a careful methodological approach for future research.

Keywords

well-being functioning aging longitudinal analysis cross-lagged effects

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