Table 1.
Characteristics of National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD) cohort members who were occupationally active in mid-life and whose physical and mental functioning had been assessed at ages 60–64, proportions and percentages (n, %) unless stated otherwise
| Sample | All |
Men n=901 |
Women n=584 |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Work exposures | |||||||
| Job demand at age 36*, mean SD | 1485 | 1.53 | 1.53 | 1.65 | 1.41 | 1.36 | 1.29 |
| Job control at age 43*, mean SD | 1485 | 2.92 | 1.07 | 3.06 | 1.02 | 2.71 | 1.12 |
| Adult characteristics | |||||||
| Occupational class at age 43 | 1481 | ||||||
| Manual | 464 | 31.2 | 275 | 30.7 | 189 | 32.4 | |
| Non-manual | 1017 | 68.5 | 622 | 69.3 | 395 | 67.6 | |
| Body mass index at ages 60–64, mean SD | 1269 | 27.82 | 4.05 | 27.83 | 4.05 | 27.80 | 5.18 |
| Smoking history at ages 60–64 | 1445 | ||||||
| Current | 153 | 10.3 | 87 | 10.0 | 66 | 11.6 | |
| Ex-smoker | 829 | 55.8 | 525 | 60.0 | 304 | 53.2 | |
| Never smoked | 463 | 31.2 | 262 | 30.0 | 201 | 35.2 | |
| Physical activity level at ages 60–64 | 1253 | ||||||
| Inactive | 765 | 51.5 | 475 | 62.9 | 290 | 58.2 | |
| 1–4 times per month | 190 | 12.8 | 108 | 14.3 | 82 | 16.5 | |
| 5 times or more per month | 298 | 20.1 | 172 | 22.8 | 126 | 25.3 | |
| Childhood exposures | |||||||
| Mother's education, primary | 1340 | 1050 | 70.7 | 626 | 76.9 | 424 | 80.6 |
| Father's education, primary | 1334 | 970 | 65.3 | 577 | 71.6 | 393 | 74.4 |
| Cognitive ability at age 8†, mean SD | 1341 | 0.16 | 0.81 | 0.12 | 0.81 | 0.21 | 0.80 |
| Parental interest in study member's school at age 7 | 1314 | ||||||
| Low | 92 | 6.2 | 61 | 7.7 | 31 | 6.0 | |
| Intermediate | 586 | 39.5 | 359 | 45.3 | 227 | 43.6 | |
| High | 636 | 42.8 | 373 | 47.0 | 263 | 50.5 | |
*Formation of the work exposure variables is explained in online supplementary table S1.
†Standardised z-score across the original NSHD cohort.