@article {10.1093/ageing/afab111,
	title = {Developing and evaluating a frailty index for older South Africans{\textemdash}findings from the HAALSI study},
	journal = {Age and Ageing},
	volume = {50},
	number = {6},
	year = {2021},
	month = {06},
	pages = {2167-2173},
	abstract = {despite rapid population ageing, few studies have investigated frailty in older people in sub-Saharan Africa. We tested a cumulative deficit frailty index in a population of older people from rural South Africa.analysis of cross-sectional data from the Health and Ageing in Africa: Longitudinal Studies of an INDEPTH Community (HAALSI) study. We used self-reported diagnoses, symptoms, activities of daily living, objective physiological indices and blood tests to calculate a 32-variable cumulative deficit frailty index. We fitted Cox proportional hazards models to test associations between frailty category and all-cause mortality. We tested the discriminant ability of the frailty index to predict one-year mortality alone and in addition to age and sex.in total 3,989 participants were included in the analysis, mean age 61\&nbsp;years (standard deviation 13); 2,175 (54.5\%) were women. The median frailty index was 0.13 (interquartile range 0.09{\textendash}0.19); Using population-specific cutoffs, 557 (14.0\%) had moderate frailty and 263 (6.6\%) had severe frailty. All-cause mortality risk was related to frailty severity independent of age and sex (hazard ratio per 0.01 increase in frailty index: 1.06 [95\% confidence interval 1.04{\textendash}1.07]). The frailty index alone showed moderate discrimination for one-year mortality: c-statistic 0.68{\textendash}0.76; combining the frailty index with age and sex improved performance (c-statistic 0.77{\textendash}0.81).frailty measured by cumulative deficits is common and predicts mortality in a rural population of older South Africans. The number of measures needed may limit utility in resource-poor settings.},
	issn = {0002-0729},
	doi = {10.1093/ageing/afab111},
	url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afab111},
	author = {Barker, Fred J and Davies, Justine I and Gomez-Olive, F Xavier and Kahn, Kathleen and Matthews, Fiona E and Payne, Collin F and Salomon, Joshua A. and Tollman, Stephen M and Wade, Alisha N and Walker, Richard W and Witham, Miles D}
}
