关键词: 虚弱指数, 增长曲线模型, 累积劣势, 生命历程视角

Abstract: Frailty index has been widely used to study the speed of change in frailty among older adults, and to depict the dynamic process of frailty caused by aging in recent years. Taking life course perspective as theoretical background, this study emphasizes the implications of observing and understanding the frailty trajectory within cohort, and also assumes that a framework for understanding the intra-cohort pattern of frailty should have three essential properties: random variability, trajectory heterogeneity, and cumulative disadvantage. Furthermore, relating these three properties to the specific parameters for growth curve models, datasets from China Longevity and Heath Longitudinal Survey is applied to test them. The primary results indicate that frailty trajectory follows a Ushaped curve, but there is significant betweenperson variation, and withingroup rather than between-group cumulative disadvantage mainly explains how the frailty trajectory differentiates.

Keywords: Frailty Index, Growth Curve Model, Cumulative Disadvantage, Life Course Perspective