@article {7276, title = {Racial and ethnic differences in activities of daily living disability among the elderly: the case of Spanish speakers.}, journal = {Arch Phys Med Rehabil}, volume = {89}, year = {2008}, month = {2008 Jul}, pages = {1262-6}, publisher = {89}, abstract = {

OBJECTIVE: To compare incident disability patterns across racial and ethnic groups.

DESIGN: Prospective cohort study with 6-year follow-up (1998-2004).

SETTING: National probability sample.

PARTICIPANTS: A 1998 Health and Retirement Study sample of 12,288 non-Hispanic whites, 1952 African Americans, 575 Hispanics interviewed in Spanish (Hispanic-Spanish), and 518 Hispanics interviewed in English (Hispanic-English), older than 51 years, and free of disability at baseline.

INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Disability in activities of daily living (ADL) tasks (walking, dressing, transferring, bathing, toileting, feeding).

RESULTS: Hispanic-Spanish reported disproportionately lower rates of walking disability (standardized rates, 4.31\% vs Hispanic-English [8.57\%], black [7.54\%], white [7.20\%]) despite higher reported Hispanic-Spanish frequencies of lower-extremity dysfunction than other racial and ethnic groups. Across the 6 ADL tasks, the development of walking disability was most frequent among Hispanic-English subjects, African Americans, and whites. In contrast, Hispanic-Spanish subjects reported dressing as the most frequent ADL task disability, whereas walking ranked fourth.

CONCLUSIONS: Aggregating all Hispanics, regardless of interview language, may be inappropriate. Future research on linguistic group differences in self-reported health outcomes is necessary to ensure that health status measures will be appropriate for use in diverse racial and ethnic groups.

}, keywords = {Acculturation, Activities of Daily Living, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Disability Evaluation, Disabled Persons, Female, Geriatric Assessment, Health Status Indicators, Hispanic or Latino, Humans, Male, Middle Aged}, issn = {1532-821X}, doi = {10.1016/j.apmr.2007.11.042}, author = {Manasi A. Tirodkar and Song, Jing and Rowland W Chang and Dorothy D Dunlop and Huan J. Chang} }