Incidence of frailty among community-dwelling older adults: a nationally representative profile in China.
BACKGROUND
Frailty is a clinically recognizable state of reduced resilience to stressors and increased vulnerability to adverse outcomes. The majority of studies have focused on the prevalence and risk factors of frailty, while the incidence of frailty has not been well documented, especially in less developed regions including China-a country that has the largest aging population in the world. We investigated the incidence of frailty among non-frail Chinese older adults by sociodemographic characteristics, disease burden, and geographic region.


METHODS
Participants were 4939 adults aged ≥60 years from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, a cohort study of a nationally representative sample of middle-aged and older community-dwelling adults from 28 provinces in China. Frailty was assessed by an adapted version of the well-validated Fried's physical frailty phenotype, in which five criteria were included: weakness, slowness, exhaustion, physical inactivity, and shrinking.


RESULTS
Over an average of 2.1 years of follow-up (10,514.2 person-years), the weighted incidence rate of frailty was 60.6 per 1000 person-years; the incidence rate was 28.8 and 86.6 per 1000 person-years for those who were initially robust and prefrail, respectively. Participants who were older and widowed, had lower education and household income, lived in rural areas, and had higher burden of chronic conditions had higher frailty incidence. Frailty incidence ranged from 44.8 per 1000 person-years in the Southeast to 93.0 per 1000 person-years in the Northwest.


CONCLUSIONS
Incidence rate of frailty was 60.6 per 1000 person-years among community-living Chinese adults aged ≥ 60 years. Substantial sociodemographic and geographical disparities exist in frailty incidence.
['Xu|Weihao|W|', 'Li|Ya-Xi|YX|', 'Wu|Chenkai|C|0000-0002-2256-0653']
D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D002681:China D002908:Chronic Disease D015331:Cohort Studies D005260:Female D016330:Frail Elderly D000073496:Frailty D015577:Geriatric Assessment D006801:Humans D015994:Incidence D057187:Independent Living D008137:Longitudinal Studies D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D010808:Physical Examination D011446:Prospective Studies D012179:Retirement D012307:Risk Factors
Frailty China Epidemiology Health disparities