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Life Course Stressors and Functional Limitations in Later Life Among White, Black, and Hispanic Adults

Although striking racial and ethnic disparities in health are manifest during later life, they may be rooted in early-life exposures. Drawing from cumulative inequality theory, we investigate whether experiencing life course stressors increases the risk of later-life functional limitations and wheth...

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Autores principales: Sauerteig, Madison, Ferraro, Kenneth, Bauldry, Shawn
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8681897/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.814
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author Sauerteig, Madison
Ferraro, Kenneth
Bauldry, Shawn
author_facet Sauerteig, Madison
Ferraro, Kenneth
Bauldry, Shawn
author_sort Sauerteig, Madison
collection PubMed
description Although striking racial and ethnic disparities in health are manifest during later life, they may be rooted in early-life exposures. Drawing from cumulative inequality theory, we investigate whether experiencing life course stressors increases the risk of later-life functional limitations and whether this relationship differs by race and ethnicity. This study utilizes longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study to test whether six indicators of child stressors and eleven indicators of adult stressors predict trajectories of the onset and severity of functional limitations in later life among a diverse sample of adults. We find that child and adult stressors are associated with earlier onset and greater severity of functional limitations during later life. Mediation analyses reveal the indirect influence of child stressors via adult stressors on onset and severity of functional limitations; however, the indirect effects are slightly stronger for Black and Hispanic adults than their White counterparts (i.e., moderated mediation). In sum, child stressors, in and of themselves, do not increase functional limitations among Black and Hispanic people but are associated with greater adult stress exposure, leading to more functional limitations in later life. Disparities in functional limitations are also partly due to lower education and less wealth among Black and Hispanic adults.
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spelling pubmed-86818972021-12-17 Life Course Stressors and Functional Limitations in Later Life Among White, Black, and Hispanic Adults Sauerteig, Madison Ferraro, Kenneth Bauldry, Shawn Innov Aging Abstracts Although striking racial and ethnic disparities in health are manifest during later life, they may be rooted in early-life exposures. Drawing from cumulative inequality theory, we investigate whether experiencing life course stressors increases the risk of later-life functional limitations and whether this relationship differs by race and ethnicity. This study utilizes longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study to test whether six indicators of child stressors and eleven indicators of adult stressors predict trajectories of the onset and severity of functional limitations in later life among a diverse sample of adults. We find that child and adult stressors are associated with earlier onset and greater severity of functional limitations during later life. Mediation analyses reveal the indirect influence of child stressors via adult stressors on onset and severity of functional limitations; however, the indirect effects are slightly stronger for Black and Hispanic adults than their White counterparts (i.e., moderated mediation). In sum, child stressors, in and of themselves, do not increase functional limitations among Black and Hispanic people but are associated with greater adult stress exposure, leading to more functional limitations in later life. Disparities in functional limitations are also partly due to lower education and less wealth among Black and Hispanic adults. Oxford University Press 2021-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8681897/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.814 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
Sauerteig, Madison
Ferraro, Kenneth
Bauldry, Shawn
Life Course Stressors and Functional Limitations in Later Life Among White, Black, and Hispanic Adults
title Life Course Stressors and Functional Limitations in Later Life Among White, Black, and Hispanic Adults
title_full Life Course Stressors and Functional Limitations in Later Life Among White, Black, and Hispanic Adults
title_fullStr Life Course Stressors and Functional Limitations in Later Life Among White, Black, and Hispanic Adults
title_full_unstemmed Life Course Stressors and Functional Limitations in Later Life Among White, Black, and Hispanic Adults
title_short Life Course Stressors and Functional Limitations in Later Life Among White, Black, and Hispanic Adults
title_sort life course stressors and functional limitations in later life among white, black, and hispanic adults
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8681897/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.814
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