Socioeconomic circumstances, health behaviours and functional limitations in older persons in four Central and Eastern European populations

OBJECTIVES to investigate functional limitations and their association with socioeconomic factors in four Central and Eastern European populations. METHODS a cross-sectional study of random population samples in Novosibirsk (Russia), Krakow (Poland), Kaunas (Lithuania) and six Czech towns participating in the HAPIEE study. Functional limitations (classified into tertiles of the SF-36 physical functioning subscale), socioeconomic circumstances and health behaviours were available for 34,431 subjects aged 45-69 years. RESULTS the proportion of subjects in the worst tertile of the functional limitations score (≤80% of the maximum score) ranged from 21% of the men in Kaunas to 48% in Krakow women. In multivariate ordered logistic regression, functional limitations were strongly inversely associated with education and positively with material deprivation and with being economically inactive. Functional limitations were more common in male smokers and less common in alcohol drinkers. Socioeconomic characteristics explained some of the differences in functional limitations between populations. Health behaviours explained some of the differences between social groups in both genders and between populations in women. CONCLUSION unexpectedly, functional limitations were not most common in the sample from Russia, the country with the highest mortality rates. All socioeconomic measures were strongly associated with functional limitations and made some contribution towards explaining differences in limitations between populations.