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This research aims to identify distinct courses of depressive symptoms among middle aged and older Americans and to ascertain how these courses vary by race/ethnicity. Data came from the 1995-2006 Health and Retirement Study which involved a national sample of 17,196 Americans over 50 years of age with up to six repeated observations. Depressive symptoms were measured by an abbreviated version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale. Semi parametric group based mixture models (Proc Traj) were used for data analysis. Six major trajectories were identified: (a) minimal depressive symptoms (15.9%), (b) low depressive symptoms (36.3%), (c) moderate and stable depressive symptoms (29.2%), (d) high but decreasing depressive symptoms (6.6%), (e) moderate but increasing depressive symptoms (8.3%), and (f) persistently high depressive symptoms (3.6%). Adjustment of time-varying covariates (e.g., income and health conditions) resulted in a similar set of distinct trajectories. Relative to white Americans, black and Hispanic Americans were significantly more likely to be in trajectories of more elevated depressive symptoms. In addition, they were more likely to experience increasing and decreasing depressive symptoms. Racial and ethnic variations in trajectory groups were partially mediated by SES, marital status, and health conditions, particularly when both interpersonal and intrapersonal differences in these variables were taken into account.

Objectives The present study examines gender differences in changes in functional status after age 50 and how such differences vary across different age groups. Methods Data came from the Health and Retirement Study, involving up to six repeated observations of a national sample of Americans older than 50 years of age between 1995 and 2006. We employed hierarchical linear models with time-varying covariates in depicting temporal variations in functional status between men and women. Results As a quadratic function, the worsening of functional status was more accelerated in terms of the intercept and rate of change among women and those in older age groups. In addition, gender differences in the level of functional impairment were more substantial in older persons than in younger individuals, although differences in the rate of change between men and women remained constant across age groups. Discussion A life course perspective can lead to new insights regarding gender variations in health within the context of intrapersonal and interpersonal differences. Smaller gender differences in the level of functional impairment in the younger groups may reflect improvement of women’s socioeconomic status, greater rate of increase in chronic diseases among men, and less debilitating effects of diseases.

BackgroundMicro-costing is a cost estimation method that allows for precise assessment of the economic costs of health interventions. It has been demonstrated to be particularly useful for estimating the costs of new interventions, for interventions with large variability across providers, and for estimating the true costs to the health system and to society. However, existing guidelines for economic evaluations do not provide sufficient detail of the methods and techniques to use when conducting micro-costing analyses. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to review the current literature on micro-costing studies of health and medical interventions, strategies, and programs to assess the variation in micro-costing methodology and the quality of existing studies. This will inform current practice in conducting and reporting micro-costing studies and lead to greater standardization in methodology in the future.Methods/DesignWe will perform a systematic review of the current literature on micro-costing studies of health and medical interventions, strategies, and programs. Using rigorously designed search strategies, we will search Ovid MEDLINE, EconLit, BIOSIS Previews, Embase, Scopus, and the National Health Service Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED) to identify relevant English-language articles. These searches will be supplemented by a review of the references of relevant articles identified. Two members of the review team will independently extract detailed information on the design and characteristics of each included article using a standardized data collection form. A third reviewer will be consulted to resolve discrepancies. We will use checklists that have been developed for critical appraisal of health economics studies to evaluate the quality and potential risk of bias of included studies.DiscussionThis systematic review will provide useful information to help standardize the methods and techniques for conducting and reporting micro-costing studies in research, which can improve the quality and transparency of future studies and enhance comparability and interpretation of findings. In the long run, these efforts will facilitate clinical and health policy decision-making about resource allocation.Trial registrationSystematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD42014007453.

Background Younger age and female sex are both associated with greater mental stress in the general population, but limited data exist on status of perceived stress in young and middle-aged patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Methods and Results We examined sex difference in stress, contributing factors to such difference, and whether this difference helps explain sex-based disparities in 1-month recovery using data from 3,572 AMI patients (2,397 women and 1,175 men) 18–55 years of age. The average score of 14-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) at baseline was 23.4 for men and 27.0 for women (p<0.001). Higher stress in women was largely explained by sex differences in comorbidities, physical and mental health status, intra-family conflict, care-giving demand, and financial hardship. After adjustment for demographic and clinical characteristics, women had worse recovery than men at 1-month post-AMI, with mean differences in improvement score ranging from −0.04 for Euro-Qol utility index to −3.96 for angina-related quality of life (p<0.05 for all). Further adjustment for baseline stress reduced these sex-based differences in recovery to −0.03 to −3.63, which however remained statistically significant (p<0.05 for all). High stress at baseline was associated with significantly worse recovery in angina-specific and overall quality of life, as well as mental health status. The effect of baseline stress on recovery did not vary between men and women. Conclusions Among young and middle-aged patients, higher stress at baseline is associated with worse recovery in multiple health outcomes after AMI. Women perceive greater psychological stress than men at baseline, which partially explains women’s worse recovery.