A frailty index is a tool based on surveys to measure the frailty level of individuals at particular points in time (cross-sectionally) and over time (longitudinally).
Using population data could help researchers better understand what causes frailty and how it changes over the life course for different people.
The frailty index was constructed using 36 self-reported items across different domains in the dataset, including health conditions, health limitations and disabilities. The frailty index uses population data from the general population sample, ethnic minority boost and immigrant and ethnic minority boost samples. The analysis was restricted to respondents who completed information for all items in a wave. To validate the constructed frailty index, associations with age and sex were tested. The analysis shows that the frailty index is a valid measure of frailty in Understanding Society.
The frailty index was created by Alexander Labeit, Jay Banerjee, Christopher Williams, Sharma Surinder, Victoria Cluley, Susan Pickard, Simon Conroy and Bran Vanhoutte. This work was developed with funding from the ESRC grant Understanding the varied experiences of frailty in older age with respect to ethnicity: a mixed methods approach. (ES/W012510/1) Principle Investigator: Susan Pickard.
Any questions about the frailty index should be sent to Alexander Labeit, a.labeit@ucl.ac.uk.
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The technical report outlines how a frailty index has been developed using data from Understanding Society.
Download the technical report (pdf 1.17 MB)
Download the file for Table E1 (csv (7.69 KB)
