Optimism and Cause-Specific Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study.

Kim ES, Hagan KA, Grodstein F, DeMeo DL, De Vivo I, Kubzansky LD

American journal of epidemiology · January 1, 2017

We used prospective data from the Nurses' Health Study (n = 70,021). Dispositional optimism was measured in 2004; all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates were assessed from 2006 to 2012. Using Cox proportional hazard models, we found that a higher degree of optimism was associated with a lower mortality risk. After adjustment for sociodemographic confounders, compared with women in the lowest quartile of optimism, women in the highest quartile had a hazard ratio of 0.71 (95% CI: 0.66, 0.76) for all-cause mortality. Adding health behaviors, health conditions, and depression attenuated but did not eliminate the associations (hazard ratio = 0.91, 95% CI: 0.85, 0.97). Associations were maintained for various causes of death, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, and infection.

PMID: 27927621 · DOI: 10.1093/aje/kww182