Successful aging trajectories and their predictors among Chinese middle-aged and older adults: Evidence from a...

The aging of the world's population poses a major problem for public health and social systems. It is crucial to understand successful aging trajectories and their predictions for making targeted interventions and strategies. This study aimed to identify successful aging trajectories of Chinese older adults and explore the factors contributing to these trajectories.

This study used five waves of longitudinal data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study from 2011 to 2020, which included 2098 middle-aged and older adults. The assessment of successful aging includes the following five aspects:(1) no major diseases, (2) no disability, (3) high cognitive function, (4) high mental well-being, and (5) active social participation. Latent growth mixture modeling (LGMM) was employed to identify successful aging trajectories and multinomial logistic regression was performed to explore the factors influencing the trajectory of successful aging.

Four distinct successful aging trajectories were identified: stable increasing with low starting point (Class1), stable type at middle level (Class2), stable with high starting point (Class3), and stable descending with medium starting point (Class4). Higher education, urban residence, and better self-rated health were associated with more favorable successful aging trajectories. Smoking and sleep deficiency were associated with less favorable trajectories. Receipt of a public pension was negatively associated with the low starting point trajectory.

This study reveals heterogeneous patterns of successful aging trajectories among Chinese adults and identifies key modifiable factors associated with these trajectories. The findings indicate that interventions targeting education, urban-rural differences, health behaviors and social support systems may help improve successful aging outcomes for China's rapidly aging population.