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Blacks,
non-bilingual Hispanics at higher risk for
Old-Age Disability
Newswise — Although
disability rates among the elderly are
falling, African-Americans and Hispanics who
are not fluent in English are nearly 50
percent more likely to become disabled after
age 65, compared to whites and Hispanics who
speak English, according to a new study.
The study, which
appears in the December issue of the
American Journal of Public Health,
included interviews with more than 8,000
adults age 65 years or older who took part
in the Health and Retirement Study. The
University of Michigan conducted the study
and the National Institute of Aging provided
funding.
“Despite two decades
where we’ve seen a declining trend in
disability rates, we still see distressingly
high rates of disability amongst older
adults whose health insurance is largely
covered by Medicare,” said lead author
Dorothy Dunlop, Ph.D., a research associate
professor at Northwestern University.
“Older
African-Americans and Spanish-speaking
Hispanics are at the greatest risk to
develop disability.”
Study participants were
disability-free when first interviewed — but
when contacted again six years later, nearly
one-third of African-Americans (30.4
percent) and a similar proportion of
Spanish-speaking Hispanics (32.7 percent)
had developed a disability significant
enough to prevent them from being able to
perform activities of daily living without
assistance.
The disability rates
for whites and Hispanics who researchers
interviewed in English were virtually
identical: 20.1 percent of whites and 20
percent of English-speaking Hispanics.
Ana Abraido-Lanza,
Ph.D., an assistant professor of
sociomedical sciences at Columbia
University, said, “These findings contribute
to the literature documenting the great gaps
in health among people of different ethnic
and socioeconomic characteristics in the
United States.” She was not involved with
the study.
The results suggest
that poverty is the main driver of these
disparities: Where the study controlled for
demographic factors and socioeconomic
status, the risk of disability for Hispanics
regardless of their English fluency was the
same.
Lifestyle factors also
have a large influence. “Weight and low
levels of physical activity are strong
predictors of disability even after
accounting for other influential health and
economic factors,” Dunlop said. She
continued, “Programs specific to language
and cultural groups, to increase physical
activity and prevent unhealthy weight gain
or loss, may be effective strategies to
reduce disability rates and reduce racial
and ethnic disparities in disability.”
Private health
insurance was protective against disability
— suggesting that limited access to health
care before becoming eligible for Medicare
could play a role in the disparities.
The American Journal
of Public Health is the monthly journal
of the American Public Health Association.
Visit www.apha.org for more information.
Complimentary online access to the journal
is available to credentialed members of the
media. Contact Olivia Chang at APHA, (202)
777-2511 or
olivia.chang@apha.org
Dunlop DD, et al.
Racial/ethnic differences in the development
of disability among older adults. Am J
Public Health 97(12), 2007.
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