Background
Social frailty has not been studied in the Philippines, a Southeast Asian country with distinct sociocultural characteristics.
Objective
To (i) develop and validate the Social Frailty Index-Philippines (SFI-Phil), using all-cause mortality (up to 4 years) as the outcome and (ii) evaluate performance of SFI-Phil across age, sex, and residence.
Methods
Performing regression analyses on baseline and 4-year follow-up data from 5153 older adults aged 60+ from the nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Ageing and Health in the Philippines (LSAHP), we selected and validated a parsimonious model of social predictors.
Results
The resulting 6-item SFI-Phil demonstrated satisfactory accuracy in predicting mortality up to 4 years (C-statistic 0.640, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.608–0.673) in a validation sample and across demographic strata, although better amongst 60–69 year olds, men, and urban residents.
Conclusion
SFI-Phil, developed considering Philippines’s sociocultural context, can be used to assess social frailty among older adults in the Philippines.
Date and Time
29 Jun 2025
Authors
Edina Yi-Qin Tan, Hanzhang Xu, Rahul Malhotra, Mark Ryan B. Paguirigan, Grace Trinidad Cruz, Yasuhiko Saito, Truls Ostbye
Affiliation
Duke-NUS Medical School, Department of Community and Family Medicine - Duke University, University of Philippines, Nihon University