Professor Emily Grundy

In the context of the current policy emphasis on extending working lives, we investigate whether the relationship between participation in paid work, other formal, and informal activities among people aged 50-69 is complementary or competitive. We also investigate differences in associations between countries using comparable longitudinal data from Denmark, France, Italy, and England. We find positive associations between informal and formal engagement in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Paid work was negatively associated with formal and informal engagement, and respondents who stopped working were more likely to be engaged in formal (Denmark and France) and informal activities (England and Italy) at follow-up than respondents who continued working. However, the strongest predictor of formal and informal engagement at follow-up was baseline engagement. In the context of policy aims to extend working lives and broaden older people's participation in other productive activities, new balances between work and other forms of engagement are still to be found.

Abstract OBJECTIVE: To examine whether socioeconomic position (SEP) is associated with progression in the health-seeking process for hearing loss. METHOD: Logistic regression of data from a cross-sectional survey representative of noninstitutionalized, 50 years and older population of England (ELSA wave 2, 2004). Using self-reported hearing difficulty as starting point, we examined the association between SEP and health-seeking behaviors in 6 stages leading to hearing aid acquisition and use. RESULTS: Higher SEP was associated with lower odds of self-reported hearing difficulty, adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 0.87 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.83-0.91, p < .001). There was marginal negative association between higher SEP and receiving hearing aid recommendation (adjusted OR = 0.88, 95% CI 0.78-0.99, p = .05). SEP was not associated with any other stage of health-seeking behavior. DISCUSSION: Among the noninstitutionalized older population of England, SEP-related inequalities exist in the prevalence of self-reported hearing loss. However, SEP is not strongly associated with progression in the remaining stages of health-seeking process during and after an individual's contact with the health system.

Lifelong Socio Economic Position and biomarkers of later life health: testing the contribution of competing hypotheses

Allostatic load and health in the older population of England: a crossed-lagged analysis

The relationship between active ageing and health using longitudinal data from Denmark, France, Italy and England

This paper investigates whether number of children and, among parents, having a daughter is associated with older people's likelihood of at least weekly face-to-face social contact and later receipt of help if needed.

Our primary aim is to develop and validate a population health metric for survey-based health assessment that combines information from both self-reported and observer-measured health indicators