Prognostic Index for 4-Year Mortality in Older Adults, February 15, 2006, Lee et al. 295 (7): 801

JAMA -- Abstract: Development and Validation of a Prognostic Index for 4-Year Mortality in Older Adults, February 15, 2006, Lee et al. 295 (7): 801: "Sei J. Lee, MD; Karla Lindquist, MS; Mark R. Segal, PhD; Kenneth E. Covinsky, MD, MPH

JAMA. 2006;295:801-808.

Context Both comorbid conditions and functional measures predict mortality in older adults, but few prognostic indexes combine both classes of predictors. Combining easily obtained measures into an accurate predictive model could be useful to clinicians advising patients, as well as policy makers and epidemiologists interested in risk adjustment.

Objective To develop and validate a prognostic index for 4-year mortality using information that can be obtained from patient report.

Design, Setting, and Participants Using the 1998 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a population-based study of community-dwelling US adults older than 50 years, we developed the prognostic index from 11 701 individuals and validated the index with 8009. Individuals were asked about their demographic characteristics, whether they had specific diseases, and whether they had difficulty with a series of functional measures. We identified variables independently associated with mortality and weighted the variables to create a risk index."