Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Soc Sci Med. 2016 Jul 18;164:44–48. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.07.014

Table 1. Cohort Demographics.

Cohort demographics, by covariate.

Total
N = 3635
Zero Books
N = 1490 (41%)
Book Readers
N = 2145 (59%)
p-value
Baseline Age 50–59 30.48% 29.15% 31.40% 0.43
60–69 33.23% 34.88% 32.09%
70–79 24.50% 24.04% 24.83%
80–89 10.80% 10.88% 10.75%
90+ 0.98% 1.04% 0.94%

Sex* Male 37.93% 45.72 % 32.55% <.0001
Female 62.07% 54.28% 67.45%

Race White 88.70% 88.66% 88.72% 0.59
Black 8.30% 8.01% 8.47%
Other 3.02% 3.33% 2.80%

Wealth* < 40,000 23.65% 25.63% 22.28% <.0001
40,000–133,000 24.51% 27.61% 22.37%
133,000–361,500 25.78% 24.30% 26.79%
> 361, 500 26.06% 22.46% 28.55%

Comorbidities 0–1 51.75% 49.90% 53.03% 0.29
2–3 40.19% 41.97% 38.97%
4–5 7.78% 7.82% 7.75%
6–7 0.28% 0.32% 0.25%

Vision* Blind 10.69% 9.07% 11.81% <.0001
Poor 27.18% 26.30% 27.79%
Fair 42.93% 41.67% 43.80%
Good 14.65% 16.76% 13.19%
Very Good 4.17% 5.60% 3.18%
Excellent 0.38% 0.60% 0.22%

Education* High School or less 57.92% 68.58% 50.56% <.0001
Some College + 42.08% 31.42% 49.44%

Job Status Unemployed 62.34% 63.86% 61.28% 0.11
Employed 37.66% 36.14% 38.72%

Marriage
Status
Unmarried 50.63% 51.46% 50.05% 0.40
Married 49.37% 48.54% 49.95%

Depression* No 84.22% 80.65% 86.69% <.0001
Yes 15.78% 19.35% 13.31%

(*: p < .05).

Book readers and non-book readers differed significantly by sex, wealth, vision, education, and depression.