A Multistage Model for Analyzing Repeated Observations on Depression in Elderly

The problem of depression in elderly, in terms of short and long-term health and economic consequence, needs to be assessed more critically. This study uses the longitudinal data from the six waves of the Health and Retirement Survey to examine the transition to depression, reverse transition from depression to no depression and also repeated transition from no depression to depression after experiencing a reverse transition during a study period. Covariate-dependent Markov models are proposed using the logistic link function based on the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation. A simplified and more flexible approach of constructing the likelihood function is demonstrated in this paper to deal with the branching of a number of transition types starting from a group of subjects with no depression at the beginning of the study.

Elderly/Depression

19060