%0 Journal Article %J Alzheimer's & DementiaAlzheimer's & DementiaAlzheimer's Dement. %D 2020 %T Difficulty and help with activities of daily living among older adults living alone with cognitive impairment %A Ryan D. Edwards %A Willa D Brenowitz %A Portacolone, Elena %A Kenneth E Covinsky %A Bindman, Andrew %A M. Maria Glymour %A Jacqueline M Torres %K Activities of Daily Living %K Aging in place %K CIND %K Dementia %K Disability %K limitations %K Living arrangement %K population-based study %K service gaps %X Abstract Introduction There is limited research on difficulties with activities of daily living (I/ADLs) among older adults living alone with cognitive impairment, including differences by race/ethnicity. Methods For U.S. Health and Retirement Study (2000?2014) participants aged 55+ living alone with cognitive impairment (4,666 individuals; 9,091 observations), we evaluated I/ADL difficulty and help. Results Among 4.3 million adults aged 55+ living alone with cognitive impairment, an estimated 46% reported an I/ADL difficulty; 72% reported not receiving help with an I/ADL. Women reported more difficulty than men. Compared to white women, black women were 22% more likely to report a difficulty without help, and Latina women were 36% more likely to report a difficulty with help. Among men, racial/ethnic differences in outcomes were not significant. Patterns of difficulty without help by race/ethnicity were similar among Medicaid beneficiaries. Discussion Findings call for targeted efforts to support older adults living alone with cognitive impairment. %B Alzheimer's & DementiaAlzheimer's & DementiaAlzheimer's Dement. %8 2020/06/26 %@ 1552-5260 %G eng %R 10.1002/alz.12102 %0 Journal Article %J Demography %D 2018 %T If My Blood Pressure Is High, Do I Take It to Heart? Behavioral Effects of Biomarker Collection in the Health and Retirement Study %A Ryan D. Edwards %K Biomarkers %K Diabetes %K Health Behavior %K Survey Methodology %X Starting in 2006, respondents in the biennial U.S. Health and Retirement Study were asked to submit biomarkers every other wave and were notified of several results. Rates of undiagnosed high blood pressure and diabetes according to these biomarkers were 1.5 % and 0.7 %, respectively. An intent-to-treat analysis suggests that collection and notification had small effects on the average respondent and may have reduced health care utilization. Among respondents who received notification of potentially dangerous biomarker levels, subsequent rates of new diagnosis and associated pharmaceutical usage increased by 20 to 40 percentage points, an order of magnitude above baseline. High blood glucose A1C was associated with a 2.2 % drop in weight and an increase in exercise among respondents without a previous diagnosis of diabetes. Notifications appear also to have altered health behaviors by spouses, suggesting household responses to health maintenance. Biomarker collection seems to have altered circumstances for an interesting minority of HRS respondents. %B Demography %V 55 %P 403-434 %G eng %N 2 %! Demography %R 10.1007/s13524-018-0650-2 %0 Journal Article %J Longitudinal and Life Course Studies %D 2017 %T Military service, combat exposure, and health in the later lives of US men %A MacLean, Alair %A Ryan D. Edwards %K Depressive symptoms %K PTSD %K Veterans %X Researchers have produced mixed findings regarding the relationship between military service, war-zone deployment, combat exposure, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and physical health at older ages. This article uses data drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to estimate growth curve models that predict how self-rated health and life-threatening illness vary across groups of men defined as combat and non-combat veterans, compared to non-veterans. According to the findings, combat veterans have worse health than men who did not experience combat during the draft era decades after their service, while non-combat veterans have health that is similar to if not better than non-veterans. Combat veterans were less healthy than these other men based both on a subjective measure of self-rated health and on an objective count of life-threatening illnesses several decades after service. Studies that simply compare veterans to non-veterans may thus continue to produce mixed findings, because particular types of veterans serve in ways that relate differently to health. %B Longitudinal and Life Course Studies %V 8 %P 122-137 %G eng %U http://www.llcsjournal.org/index.php/llcs/article/view/427 %N 2 %R 10.14301/llcs.v8i2.427 %0 Report %D 2013 %T If My Blood Pressure Is High, Do I Take It To Heart? Behavioral Impacts of Biomarker Collection in the Health and Retirement Study %A Ryan D. Edwards %K Health Conditions and Status %K Healthcare %X Starting in 2006, respondents in the U.S. Health and Retirement Study were asked to submit biomarkers and were notified of certain results. Respondents with very high blood pressure were given a card during the interview; all respondents were notified by mail of their BP, hemoglobin A1c, and total and HDL cholesterol readings alongside recommended thresholds. About 5.8 percent received the high blood pressure card, and 5.4 percent had high A1c levels, an indicator of diabetes. Rates of undiagnosed high BP and diabetes according to these biomarkers were 1.5 and 0.7 percent. Average treatment effects of biomarker collection on the panel overall were effectively zero, but notification of rare and dangerous readings triggered new diagnoses, increased pharmaceutical usage, and altered health behaviors among small subsamples of respondents and their spouses. Very high BP or A1c readings raised new diagnosis and medication usage by 20 to 40 percentage points. Uncontrolled high BP triggered reductions in own smoking and own and spouse s drinking. High A1c was associated with a 2.2 percent drop in weight and an increase in exercise among respondents without a previous diagnosis of diabetes, but with no changes among those already diagnosed, whose self-reported health and disability worsened. %I Cambridge, MA, National Bureau of Economic Research %G eng %4 biomarkers/HDL cholesterol/Diabetes Mellitus/health Care Utilization/Blood pressure %$ 69260 %0 Report %D 2010 %T Military Service, Combat Exposure, and Health in Retirement %A Ryan D. Edwards %A MacLean, Alair %K Demographics %K Risk Taking %X Military service has traditionally been the domain of healthy, robust males, but service can also reflect risk preference and socioeconomic status. Service also raises the probability of exposure to violence through combat, a significant stressor, and it may represent other types of treatments as well, both positive and negative. We might expect to find an ambiguous relationship between military service and later-life health, and several recent studies support this. In this paper, we explore the relationship between combat exposure and health past age 50 in the Health and Retirement Study, a rich longitudinal panel including many male veterans that now asks about combat exposure in its core survey. Using regression analysis and an instrumental variables approach, we show that combat exposure harms mental health and emotional well-being and raises a biomarker of stress at older ages, but it appears often to have negligible effects on a wide array of physical health metrics. %G eng %U http://www.groupwise.niu.edu/econ/graduate/Papers/edwards-maclean-combathealth-103010.pdf %4 military service/risk preference/Socioeconomic Status/combat exposure %$ 25650 %0 Journal Article %J Journal of Business & Economic Statistics %D 2008 %T Health Risk and Portfolio Choice %A Ryan D. Edwards %K financial risk %K Retirement %K risky health %X [This article investigates the role of self-perceived risky health in explaining continued reductions in financial risk taking after retirement. If future adverse health shocks threaten to increase the marginal utility of consumption, either by absorbing wealth or by changing the utility function, then health risk should prompt individuals to lower their exposure to financial risk. I examine individual-level data from the Study of Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD), which reveal that risky health prompts safer investment. Elderly singles respond the most to health risk, consistent with a negative cross partial deriving from health shocks that impede home production. Spouses and planned bequests provide some degree of hedging. Risky health may explain 20% of the age-related decline in financial risk taking after retirement.] %B Journal of Business & Economic Statistics %V 26 %P - 485472 %8 2008 %@ 07350015 %G eng %U www.jstor.org/stable/27639006 %N 4 %0 Report %D 2002 %T Aggregate Risk-Taking and Declining Mortality %A Ryan D. Edwards %K Health Conditions and Status %K Net Worth and Assets %K Public Policy %X Just as health and wealth are related, so too are health and financial risk-taking. Although directions of causality are unclear, healthier people are wealthier and take more financial risks. Dierential mortality is therefore a source of bias in cross-sectional measures of portfolio choice through age. As declines in mortality increase lifespans, poorer and previously sicker individuals will increase their share of the surviving population. It follows that the aggregate equity share in the economy may be pulled lower, all other things equal. Panel data from the Health and Retirement Study confirm these insights. Mortality-adjusted age proles of portfolio shares rose less quickly during the 1990s than their unadjusted cross-sectional counterparts. One implication of a declining aggregate equity share due to aging is that public pension programs may need to be recongured over time in order to address the changing characteristics of surviving pensioners. Phasing in a partial privatization of Social Security would be one such option. %I University of California at Berkeley, Dept. of Economics %G eng %4 financial risk taking/Wealth/Health %$ 10842 %0 Report %D 2001 %T Health Risk and Portfolio Choice %A Ryan D. Edwards %K Consumption and Savings %K Health Conditions and Status %I University of California-Berkeley %G eng %L wp_2001/Edwards2001.pdf %4 Health Risk/Saving %$ 6619