Understanding pathways linking arthritis to changes in health, activities, and participation and overall well-being

Project Summary

Healthy aging is variably defined but dominated by a focus on disability, particularly in arthritis research. This contrasts with findings that older individuals identify healthy aging more with social participation than with disability and disease. This proposal follows from our prior CLSA-based investigation of the relationship between osteoarthritis and social participation which pointed to likely complex pathways linking disease and participation. In the current proposal we extend the work, examining pathways over a longer time period, consider arthritis overall, rather than osteoarthritis alone, and determine how changes in intervening factors can critically inform understanding of these pathways. Our goal is to examine how symptoms and/or arthritis diagnosis, and changes thereof, relate to comorbid disease onset and to changes in a number of other health-related factors (e.g. systemic inflammation) that ultimately may impact on participation.