“…The covariates studied were: 1. sociodemographic variables: age (in years); sex (male, female); marital status (single, married/together, separated/divorced, widower); housing (alone, accompanied); caregiver (no, yes); schooling (no formal education, incomplete elementary education, elementary education, high school education, higher education); skin color (white, black/black with light skin/yellow); currently works (no, yes), which was verified by the question "Do you currently have any paid work? "; and income in minimum wages (less than 1, 1 to 3, 4 to 6, > 6, with the minimum wage in 2009 being R$ 465.00, and in 2010, R$ 510.00); 2. health variables: cognitive decline as evaluated by the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) validated in Brazil by Bertolucci et al 16 -MMSE is the most often used cognitive screening scale in the world, and it ranges from 0 to 30 points; the elderly individual's classification was given based on their level of schooling, where elderly people that probably did not have a cognitive deficit received values greater or equal to 19/20 points (elderly individuals with no formal schooling) and greater or equal to 23/24 points (elderly individuals with a formal education); and elderly people with a probable cognitive deficit had lower values than those mentioned 17 ; spinal disease (no, yes); arthritis and/or rheumatism (no, yes); cancer (no, yes); diabetes (no, yes); bronchitis and/or asthma (no, yes); systemic arterial hypertension (no, yes); cardiovascular diseases (no, yes); depression (no, yes); stroke (no, yes); stomach ulcer (no, yes); urinary incontinence (no, yes); and use of medications (no, yes); 3. behavioral variables: tobacco use (no, smoked and stopped, currently smokes); and alcohol use (no, moderate/high), which was evaluated by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) 18 , through the first three questions of the instrument that refer to the quantity and frequency of regular or occasional alcohol use 19 . This instrument is currently one of the most widely used measures in the world to identify groups at risk, and to track the misuse of alcohol in clinical samples and in the general population 20 .…”