Prespecification of predictor variables for DemPoRT with initial degrees of freedom (df) allocation
| Variable | Scale | Initial variable specification | df |
| Sociodemographic factors | |||
| Age | Continuous | 5 knot spline: valid range: 55–102 (male), 55–101 (female) | 4 |
| Sex | Categorical | Stratified: Male; female | NA |
| Ethnicity | Categorical | Seven categories: Caucasian; African-American; Chinese; Aboriginal; Japanese/Korean/South East Asian/Filipino; other/multiple origin/unknown/Latin American; South Asian/Arab/West Asian | 6 |
| Immigrant | Dichotomous | Yes; no | 1 |
| Education | Categorical | Four categories: less than secondary school; secondary school graduation; some postsecondary; postsecondary graduation | 3 |
| Marital status | Categorical | Four categories: now married/common law; separated/divorced; widowed; single | 3 |
| Neighbourhood social and material Deprivation41 | Ordinal | Three categories: low (1st or 2nd quintile); high 4th or 5th quintile; moderate (3rd quintile) | 2 |
| General health | |||
| Sense of belonging to local community | Ordinal | Four categories: very strong; somewhat strong; somewhat weak; very weak | 3 |
| Self-perceived stress | Ordinal | Five categories: not at all stressful; not very stressful; a bit stressful; quite a bit stressful; extremely stressful | 4 |
| Self-rated health | Ordinal | Five categories: poor; fair; good; very good; excellent | 4 |
| Health behaviours | |||
| Pack years of smoking | Continuous | 3 knot spline: valid range: 0–112 (male), 0–78 (female) | 2 |
| Smoking status | Categorical | Four categories: non-smoker; current smoker; former smoker quit <5 years ago; former smoker quit >5 years ago | 3 |
| Alcohol consumption (number of drinks last week) | Continuous | 3 knot spline: valid range: 0–50 (male), 0–24 (female) | 2 |
| Former drinker | Dichotomous | Yes; no | 1 |
| Consumption of fruit, salad, carrot and other vegetables (average daily frequency) | Continuous | 3 knot spline: valid range: 0–48 (male), 0–31 (female) | 2 |
| Potato consumption (average daily frequency) | Continuous | 3 knot spline: valid range: 0–2 | 2 |
| Juice consumption (average daily consumption | Continuous | 3 knot spline: valid range: 0–6 (male), 0–5 (female) | 2 |
| Leisure physical activity (average daily METs (kcal/kg/day)) | Continuous | 3 knot spline: valid range: 0–16 (male), 0–12 (female) | 2 |
| Functional measures | |||
| Personal hygiene and care | Dichotomous | Does not need help; needs help | 1 |
| Locomotion in the home | Dichotomous | Does not need help; needs help | 1 |
| Meal preparation | Dichotomous | Does not need help; needs help | 1 |
| Running errands | Dichotomous | Does not need help; needs help | 1 |
| Ordinary housework | Dichotomous | Does not need help; needs help | 1 |
| Heavy housework | Dichotomous | Does not need help; needs help | 1 |
| Finances | Dichotomous | Does not need help; needs help | 1 |
| Health conditions | |||
| Heart disease | Dichotomous | Yes; no | 1 |
| Stroke | Dichotomous | Yes; no | 1 |
| Diabetes | Dichotomous | Yes; no | 1 |
| Mood disorder | Dichotomous | Yes; no | 1 |
| High blood pressure | Dichotomous | Yes; no | 1 |
| Body mass index | Continuous | 3 knot spline: valid range: 10–44 (male), 10–47 (female) | 2 |
| Design | |||
| Survey year | Ordinal | Four categories: 2000/2001, 2002/2003, 2004/2005, 2006/2007 | 3 |
DemPoRT, Dementia Population Risk Tool; METs, metabolic equivalent tasks.