Well-being development at the end of life is often characterized by steep deteriorations, but individual differences in these terminal declines are substantial and not yet well understood. This study moved beyond typical consideration of health predictors and explored the role of social...

Like many medical studies, the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II) is based on a non-random "convenience sample" of self-recruited participants. To study processes of selectivity in BASE-II, we used an identical questionnaire to compare BASE-II with a large, representative reference study, the...

Recent research has repeatedly demonstrated that well-being typically evinces precipitous deterioration close to the end of life. However, the determinants of individual differences in these terminal declines are not well understood. In this study, we examine the role of perceived personal...

Self-reported measures of health are generally treated as weak measures of respondents' objective health status. On the other hand, most surveys use self-reported health to measure health status and to determine the effects of a range of other socio-economic characteristics of the local...