Health Behavior among the Elderly in Turkey: An Early Evaluation of the Geroatlas Study

Scientific investigations have revealed that behaviors about health and illness states are related to socioeconomic status, gender, and cultural factors. Chronic diseases and comorbidity are common in elderly people when compared to the rest of the population. Major problems of the elderly in Turkey are related to health behaviors, financial status and social security. We examine the association of the above with health and illness status using data from our longitudinal study, called Gerontology Atlas of Turkey (nicknamed GeroAtlas). This study was conducted in seven different cities from seven geographic regions of Turkey and investigated the attitudes of older people about their health and disease status. The early results of this study are reported in this paper.