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has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: Persistence in health behaviors among Medicare beneficiaries

  AUTHORS: Bruce Stuart, Amy Davidoff, Francoise Pradel, Ruth Lopert, Thomas Shaffer, Eberechukwu Onukwugha, Franklin Hendrick, Jennifer Lloyd

  KEYWORDS: Behavior; Elderly; Medicare; Preventive Services

  JOURNAL NAME: Open Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol.2 No.1, February 24, 2012

  ABSTRACT: We examined persistence in seven common preventive health practices for a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries over 4-year observation periods. Six panels from the 1997-2005 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) were used resulting in 13,913 unique individuals with ages ranging from below 65 (disabled) to over 80 years old. Persistence in behavior was defined as the proportion of the observation period beneficiaries participated in each activity. We estimated behavioral persistence as a function of baseline demographic, socioeconomic, and health characteristics using multivariate regression analysis. Beneficiaries were most persistent in smoking abstinence (81% reported not smoking) and least persistent with routine exercise (47% reporting none). From multivariate regression results, there was greater persistence among beneficiaries who were married when compared to those living alone (p 300% FPL compared to