Table 1. Sociodemographic and Health-Related Characteristics for the Entire Sample and for Persons with and without self-reported physician-diagnosed arthritis.

	Total	No self-reported diagnosed arthritis	Self-reported physician-diagnosed arthritis
Characteristic	N = 839	N = 321	N = 518
Sex† (women)	538 (64.1%)	175 (54.5%)	363 (70.1%)
Married† (yes)	344 (41.0%)	151 (47.0%)	193 (37.2%)
Heart Attack	143 (17.0%)	51 (16.0%)	92 (17.7%)
Hypertension†	557 (66.4%)	189 (58.9%)	368 (71.0%)
Diabetes	270 (32.2%)	96 (29.9%)	174 (33.6%)
Osteoporosis†	196 (23.3%)	44 (13.7%)	152 (29.3%)
Stroke	107 (12.7%)	39 (12.1%)	68 (13.1%)
Characteristics Mean (SD)
Age in yrs	82.1 (4.5)	82.6 (4.1)	81.7 (4.2)
Education yrs‡	5.07 (3.9)	4.98 (3.7)	4.53 (3.6)
BMI in kg/m2†	27.3 (5.1)	25.8 (4.3)	27.5 (4.9)
SF=36

^*p<.0001,

^†p <.001,

^‡p < .05: independent t-test and chi-square analyses for unadjusted comparisons between arthritis and no arthritis groups.

SD = Standard Deviation, BMI = Body Mass Index