Modelling Student Employability on an Academic Basis

With the population growth and the employability scarcity, the placement of students has become a significant concern. Problems of global ageing and miss-match of student skill and knowledge can be witnessed easily. Fewer works of literature are available to predict the placement of students. This study aims to create a supervised machine learning (SML) model to predict the employability of graduates based on their academic scores and streams. The study used the decision-tree technique to create the SML model. The model can predict the placement chance based on students' academic scores and streams with 65% accuracy. Some new theoretical and practical contributions have been discussed.

Relationship between vulnerability and life satisfaction in older population in Russia

The article examines the relationship between various components of vulnerability and life satisfaction among older people in Russia. Empirically, the study bases on data from the first wave of the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) for 2007–2010. The analysis showed that physical vulnerability, or frailty, is associated with a significantly lower level of life satisfaction of the older population. At the same time, there are differences in this relationship between age groups, and an increase in the physical vulnerability of individuals aged 75–89 years old reduces their subjective well-being to a greater extent in comparison with the group of individuals aged 60–74 years old. The financial situation of individuals also plays a significant role: lack of income to cover daily needs negatively affects subjective well-being. Socializing with friends is another predictor of life satisfaction in older age.

POLITICAL ASPECTS OF GLOBAL AGEING

Статья посвящена анализу взаимосвязи старения населения и политических изменений. Старение рассматривается как глобальный феномен, характерный как для развитых, так и для развивающихся стран. На примере Германии показана связь старения с миграционной политикой и возможными внутриполитическими изменениями. На примере Китая и США показано влияние старения на расстановку сил в борьбе за мировое лидерство.

Nutrition and Frailty: Opportunities for Prevention and Treatment

Frailty is a syndrome of growing importance given the global ageing population. While frailty is a multifactorial process, poor nutritional status is considered a key contributor to its pathophysiology. As nutrition is a modifiable risk factor for frailty, strategies to prevent and treat frailty should consider dietary change. Observational evidence linking nutrition with frailty appears most robust for dietary quality: for example, dietary patterns such as the Mediterranean diet appear to be protective. In addition, research on specific foods, such as a higher consumption of fruit and vegetables and lower consumption of ultra-processed foods are consistent, with healthier profiles linked to lower frailty risk. Few dietary intervention studies have been conducted to date, although a growing number of trials that combine supplementation with exercise training suggest a multi-domain approach may be more effective. This review is based on an interdisciplinary workshop, held in November 2020, and synthesises current understanding of dietary influences on frailty, focusing on opportunities for prevention and treatment. Longer term prospective studies and well-designed trials are needed to determine the causal effects of nutrition on frailty risk and progression and how dietary change can be used to prevent and/or treat frailty in the future.

Dominant correlates of depressive disorders and effects on quality of life among older adults in low- and middle-income countries: Further analysis of WHO study on Global Ageing and Adult Health

Background: Poor quality of life (QoL) disrupts social functioning, fulfilment of basic needs, and is associated with depressive disorder (DD). Objective: We answered the question of whether there is a common risk factor for DD across six low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and determined whether this risk factor can be ranked consistently as the most important predictor of DD in all six LMICs. We estimated the effect of DD on QoL for each country and meta-analyzed the results to generate a pooled effect estimate of DD on QoL in the six LMICs. Methods: We used data from the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE). This study involved a total of 35,164 older adults aged ≥ 50 yr. in six LMICs: China, 13,408; Ghana, 4,305; India, 7,108; Mexico, 2,309; Russian Federation, 3,763; and South Africa, 3,842. We conducted an extensive literature review to select the list of 58 potential risk factors associated with DD. We used double selection Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator Poisson regression model to identify country-specific risk factors associated with DD. Weighted dominance analysis (WDA) was performed to determine the most important risk factor of DD. To estimate the effect of DD on QoL, we used inverse probability weighting Poisson regression adjustment for each country, and meta-analysis techniques for a pooled estimate of the overall effect. Results: The risk factors for DD were generally country specific. However, asthma was the most common and the most important predictor of DD across all six SAGE countries. In Ghana, the prevalence of DD among older adults who have been diagnosed with asthma or have experienced symptoms of asthma in the 12 months preceding the survey was 14 times that among those without asthma or asymptomatic of asthma [Adjusted Prevalence Ratio (aPR), 14.46, 95% confidence interval (CI): 10.47 - 19.97; p < 0.001]. Similarly, it was 14 times in South Africa (aPR, 14.6; 95% CI: 8.18 - 26.14; p < 0.00) but in Mexico, it was 4 times (aPR, 4.39; 95% CI: 3.00 - 6.42; p < 0.001) and in China (aPR, 5.99; 95% CI: 4.32 - 8.31; p < 0.001) and Russia (aPR, 5.90; 95% CI: 3.9 - 9.0; p < 0.001), it was 6 times. In India, it was 5 times (aPR=5.1; 95% CI: 4.3 - 6.0; p < 0.001. Generally, there was evidence of 8% increase in poor QoL due to the presence of DD (Pooled estimate, 0.08; 95% CI: 6.0 – 12; p < 0.001). Specifically, in China, there was evidence of 12% increase in poor QoL that could be attributed to DD (prevalence difference (PD), 0.12; 95% CI: 0.07 - 0.18; p < 0.001). In India (PD, 0.08; 95% CI: 0.04 - 0.13; p < 0.01) and Russian Federation (PD, 0.08; 95% CI: 0.01 - 0.15; p < 0.01), there was evidence of 8% increase in poor QoL. Although, there was some increase in poor QoL in Mexico, Ghana, and South Africa due to DD, the increase was not statistically significant. Conclusion: Although different factors could explain the prevalence of DD among older adults in the six LMICs, it was evident that asthma patients amongst this population were at a higher risk of DD. Clinical evaluation and potential diagnosis and treatment of DD among older adults who present with asthma could potentially enhance their QoL

Functional difficulties and toileting among older adults in Ghana: evidence from the World Health Organization Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE) Ghana Wave 1

Ghana's older population is projected to increase in coming decades and as a result will see increasing care needs. Understanding the functional difficulties older adults experience, and the associated factors, will help identify relevant intervention to assist older adults in meeting their care needs. This study aimed to analyse the prevalence of functional difficulties among older adults in Ghana, and examine how the World Health Organization International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (WHO-ICF) conceptual framework can relate to toileting difficulty to understand the factors that increase older adults’ care needs. Data were for 5,096 adults aged ⩾50 years from the WHO Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE) Ghana Wave 1. Difficulties were assessed using self-reported difficulty on 22 functional items, including toileting. Multivariate logistic regression tested associations between toileting and other factors as related to the WHO-ICF conceptual framework. Older adults reported climbing one flight of stairs without resting as a common functional difficulty. Difficulty eating was the item least identified. Toileting difficulty was ranked second among five total activities of daily living difficulties. Age, marital status, self-reported health, memory, bodily pain, short- and far-distance vision, obesity, stroke, chronic lung disease, trust at individual and neighbourhood level, toilet facility type, socialising with co-workers, and public and religious meeting attendance were statistically significantly associated with toileting difficulty in the final parsimonious model. Post-hoc analysis testing interaction revealed that interaction existed between female sex and never married marital status (p = 0.04), and obesity and widowed marital status (p = 0.01), with toileting as the outcome. A significant level of functional difficulty existed among Ghanaian older adults in this sample. Toileting difficulty was associated with factors across different components in the WHO-ICF, emphasising functional, social and environmental factors related to this fundamental human activity.