• Koichiro Shiba, Laura D Kubzansky, David R Williams, Tyler J VanderWeele, and Eric S Kim.
• Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts; Human Flourishing Program, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Electronic address: kshiba@bu.edu.
• Prev Med. 2022 Nov 1; 164: 107310107310.

AbstractWe 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.Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

18 keywords...

hide…