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Life Expectancy
At the Duke University Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, medical sociologist Erdman Palmore and his colleagues devised a longevity index to predict how many years of life were left to people once they reached old age. Palmore's subjects were 268 normally healthy community volunteers ranging from sixty to ninety-four years of age. They were studied for thirteen years. By the end of that time, 121 subjects had died. Palmore measured certain characteristics of both the deceased and the survivors. He found that physical condition had a great deal less influence on life expectancy than did psychological and social factors. His longevity index proved far more accurate than the tables used by life insurance companies, which are based largely on physical health.
As expected, general good health at the time of the initial interview was one reliable sign. For people between sixty and sixty-nine, use of tobacco made a significant difference in shortening life. For men, little could be predicted on the basis of physical activity. For women up to age sixty-nine, this was the single most important indicator of how long they would live. Active women lived longer than those who led a more passive existence.
A person's income made almost no difference in life expectancy. More important were the nonmaterial rewards of a job, what Palmore calls work satisfaction. The ability to do things well was another good predictor. This ability, along with leisure activities, work satisfaction, and overall happiness proved to be a more reliable guide to long life than physical health, exercise, or the use of tobacco. In short, a useful role and a cheerful view of life provide the best way to outlive the insurance companies' predictions.
Psychologist Morton A. Lieberman found that entering an institution for the aged shortens life. Lieberman compared people between the ages of seventy and ninety-five in institutions with those of similar background who remained in the community. Of 1,000 patients who entered a home, 24 percent died within six months, two and a half times as many as those who remained outside. Lieberman concluded that the cause of their deaths was essentially psychological. For many of these people, the crisis of going into an institution, perhaps not by choice, weakened their will to live.
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