Trajectories of affective well-being and survival in middle-aged and older adults.

ABSTRACT

Affective experiences are key components of subjective well-being with important implications for health. However, little is known about heterogeneous longitudinal affect trajectories and their links to survival. This study identified joint trajectory subgroups based on 18-year changes in positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) and examined their differential associations with mortality risk. Participants were 3,250 adults (aged 39-93 years) from the Midlife in the U.S. study assessed over three waves (1995-2013). Parallel growth mixture modeling revealed three subgroups (a) improving (increasing PA, decreasing NA), (b) deteriorating (decreasing PA, increasing NA), and (c) flourishing (high, stable PA, low, stable NA). Adjusting for baseline demographic and health covariates, Cox proportional-hazard results showed the improving group had the lowest mortality risk (HR = 0.82, 95% CI [0.35, 1.32]) and the deteriorating group had the highest mortality risk (HR = 1.86, 95% CI [1.34, 3.55]), relative to flourishing. These findings highlight the importance of modeling multidimensional trajectories of affective well-being and their heterogeneous links to survival. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).