Developmental trajectories of successful aging among older adults in China: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

This study aimed to identify potential trajectory groups of successful aging in older adults and to explore the influencing factors of each trajectory group. We used four waves of longitudinal data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study from 2011 to 2018, which involved 1,949 older adults. The developmen-tal trajectories were determined using growth mixture modeling (GMM), and the influencing factors of each trajectory group were identified using multinomial logistic analysis. We identified three different groups of successful aging trajectories: high level-declining group (45%), medium level-declining group (39%), and low level-steady group (16%). Gender, education, marital status, place of residence, self-rated health, life satisfac-tion, and retirement pension were the influencing factors for the high level-declining group. Influencing fac-tors for the medium level-declining group included gender, education, self-rated health, life satisfaction, and retirement pension. Healthcare professionals should formulate targeted measures according to different tra-jectory categories to promote successful aging in older adults.(c) 2023 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Automated summary

This study aimed to identify potential trajectory groups of successful aging in older adults and explore their influencing factors. Longitudinal data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study from 2011 to 2018 were used, involving 1,949 older adults. Three different trajectory groups of successful aging were identified: high level-declining group (45%), medium level-declining group (39%), and low level-steady group (16%). Influencing factors varied for each group, including gender, education, self-rated health, life satisfaction, and retirement pension. Healthcare professionals should develop targeted measures for different trajectory categories to promote successful aging.