TY - JOUR T1 - The contribution of dementia to the disparity in family wealth between black and non-black Americans JF - Ageing and Society Y1 - 2020 A1 - Jennifer Kaufman A1 - William T Gallo A1 - Fahs,Marianne C. KW - African Americans KW - Age KW - Aging KW - Alzheimer's disease KW - Alzheimers disease KW - Blacks KW - Costs KW - Dementia KW - dementia cost KW - Equity KW - Families & family life KW - Gerontology And Geriatrics KW - Health and Retirement Study KW - Income inequality KW - Long term health care KW - Ownership KW - Racial differences KW - Racial Disparities KW - Retirement KW - Senility KW - Studies KW - United States–US KW - Wealth KW - wealth disparities AB - {The enormous economic burden of dementia in the United States of America falls disproportionately on families coping with this devastating disease. Black Americans, who are at greater risk of developing dementia than white Americans, hold on average less than one-eighth of the wealth of white Americans. This study explores whether dementia exacerbates this wealth disparity by examining dementia's effect on wealth trajectories of black versus non-black Americans over an eight-year period preceding death, using five waves of data (beginning in 2002 or 2004) on decedents in the 2012 and 2014 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N = 2,429). Dementia is associated with a loss of 97 per cent of wealth among black Americans, compared with 42 per cent among non-black Americans, while wealth loss among black and non-black Americans without dementia did not differ substantially (15% versus 19%). Dementia appears to increase the probability of wealth exhaustion among both black and non-black Americans, although the estimate is no longer significant after adjusting for all covariates (for blacks, odds ratio (OR) = 2.04, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.83, 5.00; for non-blacks VL - 40 SN - 0144686X IS - 2 ER -