Study highlights racial and ethnic disparities in disability amongst older adults

Roughly 40% of older Black adults live with a disability, in comparison with only one-third of older adults overall.

Disability is one in all various disparities highlighted in a brand new study from the University of Michigan, which used data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging to look at the extent to which 50- to 80-year-olds were prepared to age in place and the racial and ethnic disparities that exist to that end.

Sheria Robinson-Lane, U-M assistant professor of nursing and principal investigator, said lots of the disparities were related to “weathering”—stressors connected to environmental, economic or social aspects that speed up age. Researchers found that income, disability status and household composition emerged as aspects that always negatively impact minority aging.

Robinson-Lane was struck by the high level of disability, especially amongst older African-American adults. Multiracial respondents fared barely higher with 36% reporting a disability.

I knew there was disability amongst older adults, but I assume I didn’t really consider the extent of it. So many communities are very inaccessible—I feel that’s what was so shocking to me. I feel the major takeaway message is we want to create more accessible spaces. The population dynamics are shifting; there’s not enough younger people to support the older adults that we have now.

We’re waiting too long to begin to make a few of these critical changes to (guarantee) basic levels of accessibility inside our communities and public spaces.”

Sheria Robinson-Lane, U-M assistant professor of nursing and principal investigator

The study, which appears in Geriatric Nursing, also suggests that rural Indigenous populations are essentially the most prepared to age in place—a finding that challenges the traditional wisdom that the accessibility of city living over rural living is preferable for older adults.

Indigenous participants were essentially the most confident that they may get the mandatory help with day by day living activities, and that their home had the mandatory features to age in place—a claim seemingly substantiated by the presence of specific accessible home features.

Rural health outcomes often give attention to white populations and exclude Indigenous peoples, although they too often live in rural areas, Robinson-Lane said. The self-sufficiency reported by Indigenous participants is probably going a mixture of culture and community, she said.

“(There may be) a protracted history of really having to kind of figure it out on their very own, and to need to depend on community to get their needs met,” Robinson-Lane said. “They’re capable of proceed to achieve this as they age.”

It’s necessary to notice that Indigenous people have one in all the bottom life expectancies, so while they might be more prepared to age in place, they aren’t living so long as white people, she said.

Asian, Black, Hispanic and multiracial respondents usually tend to belong to the “sandwich generation” and have a number of children living at home—one other example of a weathering stressor, Robinson-Lane said.

Other findings:

• 1 / 4 of all participants reported annual household income of $30,000 or less, in comparison with half of Black respondents.
• Greater than 25% reported living alone, with the very best proportion amongst Black (44%), Indigenous (40%), and multiracial (36%).
• 23% of participants had a housemate with a disability, in comparison with 36% of Black respondents and 34% of multiracial respondents.
• 21% of respondents rated their health fair or poor, in comparison with 37% of Black respondents.

The NPHA is a recurring national household survey of adults ages 50-80 that examines their experiences and perspectives on quite a lot of health topics. The poll relies on the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine.