Improvements in Physical Health and Function in Women During the Midlife

Women in the midlife often experience changes in their health. While we typically associate aging with a decrease in physical health and functioning, women may have the ability to improve. Our objective was to identify women who improve their physical health and function during the midlife, and find factors associated with improvement. Participants in this longitudinal cohort included women from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN). The main outcome was a clinically important (>= 5 point) increase in the Physical Component Score (PCS) of the Short Form-36 (SF-36) from SWAN Visit 8 to 15, at least a 10-year period. We looked at whether several sociodemographic indicators, health status measures and comorbidities measured at Visit 8 were associated with a PCS increase using logistic regression. 1,807 women in SWAN qualified for the analysis with 265 (14.7%) experiencing an increase in PCS. Factors associated with an improvement included not having difficulty paying for basics, having better sleep, lack of osteoarthritis, higher physical activity score, less medications, lower BMI, and lower PCS at Visit 8. Several of these factors are potentially modifiable and could serve as the basis for interventions, and encourage women that improvements are possible during the midlife.