Review of Literature

The second chapter of this book provides an in-depth review of literature on older adults’ (including the oldest old’s) health, with a particular focus on sociological and demographic studies. Merits and limitations of previous studies are discussed. The chapter also discusses how this manuscript advances our understanding of Chinese oldest old’s health and fills the gaps of previous literature. The chapter indicates that previous work has significantly advanced our understanding of older adults’ health, particularly health of the oldest old. Empirical findings also contained important policy implications in terms of promoting seniors’ health and subjective wellbeing. Nonetheless, most existing studies applied a cross-sectional scope, which prevents us from understanding the changing patterns of the oldest old’s health and its influential factors. Although some studies have applied a longitudinal view to carry out analyses, these studies only touched on limited health related subjects. The compound effects of age, period and cohort are still unclear when linking some important demographic, behavioral and social factors to the oldest old’s health, which remains a gap in the existing studies. Thus, the chapter proposes applying the APC approach and constructing CCREMs to examine Chinese oldest old’s health to improve studies of the oldest old’s health.