Frailty Among Older Indians: State-Level Factors

Frailty is a common syndrome affecting older adults. While frailty has well-established relationships with multiple adverse health outcomes and death, the role of the social and economic environment in the development of frailty is less clear. We consider this relationship in India, which has a growing population of older adults whose environments have undergone extensive social and economic changes over the last few decades. We compare the distributions of frailty among older adults across the states of India and explore the influence of both current social and economic indicators and historical indicators at the state level. We find substantial variation in the state-level prevalence of frailty, which remains even after sex stratification and age standardization. We also find significant associations between frailty and current (2018) and historic (1981) state-level socioeconomic variables. We conclude with a discussion of the scientific and policy implications of early-life and contemporaneous social and economic conditions for the frailty of older adults.