Table 1.

Characteristics of Study Participants from the Health and Retirement Study at Baseline

	Total (n = 2,197)	Survived (n = 980)	Died (n = 1,217)
Sociodemographic Background
Age at onset	69.46 (11.30)	65.45 (9.61)	72.69 (11.52)^***
Male	55.08	56.02	54.31
Non-Hispanic black	13.93	11.84	15.61 ^*
Non-Hispanic other race	2.00	2.24	1.81
Hispanic	7.46	8.27	6.82
Lives in the South	44.24	43.57	44.78
Marriage Timing
Early 1^st marriage	14.83	15.69	14.13
On-time 1^st marriage	68.16	72.59	64.60 ^***
Late 1^st marriage	17.02	11.72	21.28 ^***
Marital Status
Never married	2.37	2.45	2.30
Continuously married	41.65	46.43	37.80 ^***
Remarried	20.07	23.88	17.10 ^***
Divorced	12.34	12.55	12.16
Widowed	23.58	14.69	30.73 ^***
Marital Transitions
Number of marital losses (0–5)	0.64 (0.76)	0.64 (0.80)	0.64 (0.72)
Marriage Duration^†
Length of longest marriage (%)	49.49 (21.11)	49.53 (20.45)	49.46 (21.63)
Socioeconomic Factors
Years of education	11.44 (3.37)	12.06 (3.18)	10.94 (3.43)^***
Wealth in thousands of dollars	168.01 (478.52)	194.39 (508.09)	146.78 (452.40)^*
Employment limited by health	53.39	42.55	62.12 ^***
No health insurance	5.96	6.53	6.90
Psychosocial Factors
No children	6.33	5.61	6.90
No nearby friends and/or relatives	20.35	21.73	19.23
Never attends religious services	26.22	26.33	26.13
CES-D depressive symptoms (0–8)	2.24 (2.27)	1.96 (2.25)	2.46 (2.26)^***
Behavioral Factors
Current smoker	19.03	18.37	19.56
Drinks alcohol in excess	12.29	15.82	9.45 ^***
No vigorous exercise	77.15	70.71	82.33 ^***
Does not take medication	16.25	12.76	19.06 ^***
Physiological Factors
Underweight, BMI < 18.5	2.46	1.12	3.53 ^***
Overweight or obese, BMI ≥ 25.0	65.73	73.27	59.65 ^***
ADL limitations (0–5)	0.65 (1.27)	0.35 (.885)	0.90 (1.46)^***
Diagnosed chronic illness	78.33	73.78	82.00 ^***
Recurrent heart attack	18.02	18.27	17.83

p ≤ .05;

^**

p ≤ .01;

^***

p ≤ .001 (two-tailed test).

^†

Measured as a ratio of (years married/age) × 100.