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Disparities in COVID-19 Related Worry Among Older Adults in the United States

Racial disparities in COVID-19 exposure, illness, hospitalization and mortality have been well-documented, however, less is known about whether African Americans and other minorities experience greater worry related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from the special midterm release of the 2020 Health a...

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Autores principales: Wheaton, Felicia, Scatliffe, Terika, Johnson, Matilda
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8680275/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.1859
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author Wheaton, Felicia
Scatliffe, Terika
Johnson, Matilda
author_facet Wheaton, Felicia
Scatliffe, Terika
Johnson, Matilda
author_sort Wheaton, Felicia
collection PubMed
description Racial disparities in COVID-19 exposure, illness, hospitalization and mortality have been well-documented, however, less is known about whether African Americans and other minorities experience greater worry related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from the special midterm release of the 2020 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) were used to examine the relationship between race (white, African American, and other) and ethnicity (Hispanic/Non-Hispanic) and COVID-19 related worry among older Americans (N=2,069). Participants were asked, “because of the coronavirus pandemic how worried are you about 1) your own health, 2) the health of others in your family? 3) Your financial situation? 4) Being able to get help if you needed it from family, friends, or others? 5) What will happen in the future?” (0=not at all worried and 10=very worried). Results from OLS regression controlling for age, gender and education showed that compared with whites, African Americans had significantly higher average worry for all items except the last (other race did not differ). On the other hand, Hispanics had significantly lower worry, on average, for each of the five items. In addition, women had significantly higher average worry, while age was negatively associated with all items except the first. These findings indicate that in addition to the previously documented disparities in COVID-19, older African Americans experienced more worry. This has important implications for long-term physical and mental health.
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spelling pubmed-86802752021-12-17 Disparities in COVID-19 Related Worry Among Older Adults in the United States Wheaton, Felicia Scatliffe, Terika Johnson, Matilda Innov Aging Abstracts Racial disparities in COVID-19 exposure, illness, hospitalization and mortality have been well-documented, however, less is known about whether African Americans and other minorities experience greater worry related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from the special midterm release of the 2020 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) were used to examine the relationship between race (white, African American, and other) and ethnicity (Hispanic/Non-Hispanic) and COVID-19 related worry among older Americans (N=2,069). Participants were asked, “because of the coronavirus pandemic how worried are you about 1) your own health, 2) the health of others in your family? 3) Your financial situation? 4) Being able to get help if you needed it from family, friends, or others? 5) What will happen in the future?” (0=not at all worried and 10=very worried). Results from OLS regression controlling for age, gender and education showed that compared with whites, African Americans had significantly higher average worry for all items except the last (other race did not differ). On the other hand, Hispanics had significantly lower worry, on average, for each of the five items. In addition, women had significantly higher average worry, while age was negatively associated with all items except the first. These findings indicate that in addition to the previously documented disparities in COVID-19, older African Americans experienced more worry. This has important implications for long-term physical and mental health. Oxford University Press 2021-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8680275/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.1859 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Abstracts
Wheaton, Felicia
Scatliffe, Terika
Johnson, Matilda
Disparities in COVID-19 Related Worry Among Older Adults in the United States
title Disparities in COVID-19 Related Worry Among Older Adults in the United States
title_full Disparities in COVID-19 Related Worry Among Older Adults in the United States
title_fullStr Disparities in COVID-19 Related Worry Among Older Adults in the United States
title_full_unstemmed Disparities in COVID-19 Related Worry Among Older Adults in the United States
title_short Disparities in COVID-19 Related Worry Among Older Adults in the United States
title_sort disparities in covid-19 related worry among older adults in the united states
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8680275/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.1859
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