Table 1.

Variables measured at baseline and follow-up

Variables	Scale	Measurement/categorization
Clinic visit – baseline (conducted by trained research staff)
Waist circumference		Measurement taken halfway between costal margin and iliac crest
Hip circumference		Measurement taken over greater trochanter
Diabetes		Identified from medical record or participant recall of diagnosis
Coronary heart disease		Identified by data extracted from primary-care records (Tillin et al. 2012)
Stroke		Recorded according to primary-care data or participant report
Hypertension		Recorded according to primary-care data or participant report
Questionnaire – baseline (self-reported)
Socioeconomic position	Manual labour	Dichotomized into manual v. non-manual
	Home tenure	Dichotomized into own home v. do not own home
Physical activity	Total weekly energy expended (MJ) in sport, walking and cycling, using questions and energy expenditure estimates (Durnin & Passmore, 1967)	Logarithmically transformed to accommodate negatively skewed data
Smoking	Smoking history	Dichotomized into current v. ex/never smoker
Clinic visit – follow-up (conducted by trained research staff)
Depressive symptoms	10-item version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS; D'Ath et al. 1994), well-validated in multi-ethnic samples (Abas et al. 1998)	Case-level depressive symptoms were defined as a score of ⩾4/10. The internal consistency for this scale was satisfactory (Cronbach's α: White European = 0.66; South Asian = 0.72; African Caribbean = 0.69)
Waist circumference		Measurement taken halfway between costal margin and iliac crest
Hip circumference		Measurement taken over greater trochanter
Diabetes		Identified from medical record, participant recall of diagnosis, or follow-up oral glucose tolerance test
Coronary heart disease		Identified by data extracted from primary-care records (Tillin et al. 2012)
Stroke		Recorded according to primary-care data or participant report
Hypertension		Recorded according to primary-care data or participant report
Cognitive function	Delayed word recall scores using the CERAD 10-word recall test (Morris et al. 1989)	Participants presented with 10 words on 3 occasions and were asked to recall them again after a delay of a few minutes. The number of correct words recalled after the delay was recorded
Questionnaire – follow-up (self-reported)
Stressful life events	Life events scale assessed stressful life events over the preceding 2 years	List of 9 potentially stressful events; a dichotomous variable identified the presence or not of any stressful event over this period
Social contact		Measured by asking participants how many hours per week they spend with friends or family
Health state	EQ-5D (www.euroqol.org) (EQ-5D)	EQ-5D values transformed in a utility score using weights from the Measurement and Valuation of Health time trade-off (TTO) set of weights (Measurement and Valuation of Health Group, 1995; Dolan, 1997)
Physical activity	Total weekly energy expended (MJ) in sport, walking and cycling, using questions and energy expenditure estimates (Durnin & Passmore, 1967)	Logarithmically transformed to accommodate negatively skewed data
Smoking	Smoking history	Dichotomized into current v. ex/never smoker
Alcohol consumption	Regularity of consumption	Categorized into 5 groups (never/special occasions only, once/twice a month, once/twice a week, four/five times a week, daily)
Functional limitation		Impairment recorded if participants reported limitation with ⩾1 of following: (1) walking unaided without stopping and discomfort; (2) walking up and down a flight of 12 stairs without resting; (3) bending down to pick up a shoe from the floor