James Lubben

Boston College | BC · Graduate School of Social Work

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and outcomes of the Engaged4Life program, an intervention to encourage inactive community-dwelling older adults to embed physical activity, cognitive activity, and social interaction into their everyday lives in contexts that are personally meaningful and natural for them. Fifteen participan...

Objectives: The current cross-cultural study examines the pathways underlying different formations of social networks and social support systems, which affect depression symptoms among older Korean immigrants and non-Hispanic Whites in the United States. Method: Data for this study came from a panel survey of 223 older Korean American immigrants...

The objective of this study was to test predictors of change in social engagement across the retirement transition in a cohort of 10,692 French utility workers retiring between 1992 and 2004, aged 51-65 in 2004. Three measures of social engagement (organizational activity participation, number of close family members, and number of close friends) w...

The process for developing social policies in the Palestinian Territories has undergone several changes in recent years. Most recently, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) formally adopted the partnership approach whereby policies are developed with participation by the civil society sector and international donor organizations. However, it is...

Background and Purpose Addiction is a chronic debilitating illness associated with serious consequences across multiple life domains. Over 22 million Americans struggle with addiction, but only 10% of those who need treatment are able to get it. Approximately 72% of those who are able to access treatment for addiction suffer from at least one co-m...

Understanding the complex relationship between the environmental context and the well-being of older adults is paramount as aging in place is increasingly acknowledged as a policy goal. This study investigated how the social environment (measured by social capital) was related to both physical and mental health. A sample of 3,219 older adults (60 y...

This chapter makes a case for the development of valid and reliable short measures for geriatric social work practice. These abbreviated measures, defined as having no more than 10 items, can be practical screeners for risk factors as well as important tools for clarifying the relevance and importance of social health to the well-being of older adu...

This chapter highlights the major demographic changes taking place in aging societies. It cites the tripling of the world's population 65 years of age and older over the next 50 years, and argues that the implications of this rapid aging will profoundly shape the 21st century.

This paper explores determinants of aging well in 1,502 randomly selected Chinese elders in China. In Chinese traditional culture, elders assume a socially integrated and productive social role within the family. This role parallels the active engagement domain of the Rowe and Kahn model of successful aging. However, in their model, health and phys...

In clinical practice, the status of living alone is often used as the only measure describing an older person's social network. We evaluated whether additional use of a brief social network measure provides relevant additional information in relation to social support and engagement. Cross-sectional survey of 6982 community- dwelling adults 65 year...

We examined whether social networks had a protective association with incidence of dementia among elderly women. We prospectively studied 2249 members of a health maintenance organization who were 78 years or older, were classified as free of dementia in 2001, and had completed at least 1 follow-up interview in 2002 through 2005. We used the Teleph...

Little is known about dental appearance in terms of the elderly population. The purpose of this paper is to compare self‐reported dental appearance with dentist‐rated appearance for individuals over 65. The subjects (N = 550) were participants in the Los Angeles based Medicare Screening and Health Promotion Trial. Most were female (57.3%), white (8...

Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are one of the fastest-growing populations among the U.S. population sixty-five years of age and older. In 2003, nearly one million older Asians lived in the United States. By 2030, this population will grow to four million (He et al., 2005). Not only are older AAPIs growing in numbers, but also they are...

The purpose of this article is to explore how kin and nonkin social support networks influence health behaviors among older Samoan women. Using a cross-sectional survey design, 290 Samoan women who were age 50 years and older were interviewed. Using separate logistic regressions, each health behavior was regressed on age and kin and nonkin social s...

There is a need for valid and reliable short scales that can be used to assess social networks and social supports and to screen for social isolation in older persons. The present study is a cross-national and cross-cultural evaluation of the performance of an abbreviated version of the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6), which was used to screen...

The purpose of this study is to examine racial/ethnic differences in the change of psychological distress as measured by CES-D over time and its associated factors between older Korean immigrants and non-Hispanic White elders, based on a social stress perspective. Data come from a two-wave panel survey of 172 older Korean immigrants and 157 non-His...

Worldwide population ageing, concomitant increases in disability rates, and changes in family health care systems require an examination of current service delivery to optimize use of societal resources in the future. This article examines a community health care approach suggested by research conducted by the World Health Organization Kobe Centre...

Loneliness and social isolation have been shown to be of increasing significance to the quality of life among older populations. Research on loneliness has greatly expanded in the last 25 years since the seminal work on loneliness by Weiss (1973). The groundbreaking study by Berkman and Syme (1979) demonstrating that social isolation was associated...

Doctoral training is a key juncture for addressing the severe shortage of aging-savvy social workers. Today's doctoral students in social work are tomorrow's faculty who, in turn, will train the next generation of practitioners and who will undertake research critical to improving practice. Increasing the number of geriatric social work doctoral st...

This study identifies whether culturally based differences in perceptions of health resulted in differences in ambulatory care use among the elderly. METHODS. The authors conducted stratified Poisson regressions on data from a 1992 survey of older Koreans and Whites in Los Angeles County. The models included measures of demographics, health, functi...

Many ethnic groups are known to use traditional healers often in conjunction with Western biomedical medicine, thus combining treatment regimens and medical advice as they see fit. Awareness of the use of traditional healers is an increasingly salient issue due to the growing diversity and aging of the U.S. population. To explore the determinants o...

Currently, one-fifth of Americans over age 65 have no children. Demographic predictions estimate that almost one-third of the baby-boom generation, when they reach age 65, will have no children. Given the extensive supportive roles played by adult children, this increase in adults without children has implications for social policy and social work...

This article presents a comparative analysis of the level of awareness and utilization of 15 community-based long-term care services by 213 elderly Korean and 201 non-Hispanic White Americans. We found extremely low levels of awareness and utilization of long-term health and social services among Korean Americans, in both absolute and relative term...

This article presents a comparative analysis of chronic disease prevalence among older Koreans and non-Hispanic whites residing in Los Angeles County. The authors conducted a multivariate analysis that explores the impact of socioeconomic status, other sociodemographic variables, and social isolation on disease prevalence. The results reveal that w...

This research used two national surveys of schools of social work to examine relationships between demographic and organizational variables and the adoption of gerontological curriculum. An innovation diffusion model was used to examine curriculum development at a basic and substantial level. Both levels of curriculum development were related to th...

This article explores the relationship between sociopsychological factors, sexual activity, and sexual satisfaction in a sample of 1,216 elderly people (mean age = 77.3). Almost 30% hadparticipated in sexual activity in the past month and 67% were satisfied with current level of sexual activity. Men are more likely to be sexually active, but less a...

The official health promotion goals for the year 2000 in the United States include an emphasis on behavioral and contextual changes to increase the healthy lifespan of Americans. The goals also encompass reducing disparities in health status among different groups, and many of the specific goals address issues pertinent to older people. Limited dat...

Results of a longitudinal study of 1,050 women 65 years of age and older under the care of faculty internists demonstrate that individual and sociodemographic factors predict mammography use. The majority of the sample (79%) had received a mammogram within the past two years. Multiple logistic regression analyses of findings from a telephone survey...

This article describes a geriatric wellness program in which social work practitioners played a major role. The focus of this article is twofold: to examine the use of a telephone screening test for depression among a well elderly population and to compare the results of that screening with the clinical judgment of social workers. Overall findings...

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship of self-rated oral health to a comprehensive battery of clinical, sociodemographic, physical health, and mental health measures in a well-elderly urban population. Results are based on telephone interviews and clinical assessments of 550 subjects over 65 years of age participating in a Los...

Thirty years of published reports address two core issues: What are the effects of relocating the elderly? And, what factors in the person or the conditions of the relocation explain the observed effects? The present chapter reviews what we now know about these two central questions and how we know it. To accomplish these goals, all published studi...

Health promotion and disease prevention for the elderly offer the potential for improving the quality of life for the growing population of older adults, while reducing the economic burden on the health system. Whether this potential can be realized depends, in part, on whether those older adults whose health behaviors put them at risk actually use...

This article reports on a 1988 survey of graduate schools of social work in the United States. Innovation diffusion theory is used to distinguish variables related to adoption of gerontological curriculum. Two levels of gerontological curricula adoption (minimal aging content integration and substantial aging curricula development) were differentia...

Considerable empirical evidence substantiates the importance of social networks and support to health and well-being among the elderly. But considerably more research is necessary before successful interventions can be more generally implemented to positively alter an elder's network. In this article, the authors discuss social supportand isolation...

This article reports data on 16 indicators of the physical, mental, and social health status of older Chinese living in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Los Angeles. Both the frequency distributions of these indicators and their factor structures are different among the three cities. These differences may have implications for the planning of public health...

This article reports data on 16 indicator of the physical, mental, and social health status of older Chinese living in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Los Angeles. Both the frequency distributors of these indicator and their factor structures are different among the three cities. These differences may have implication for the planning of public health serv...

Persons 85 years and older are the most rapidly growing segment of the aged population. Their use of health services is exceptionally large and preventive measures to decrease medical costs as well as improve quality of life in old age have been suggested. The present study used data from California Preventive Health Care for the Aging Program to e...

To determine the use of benzodiazepines (BZDs) in an older, community-dwelling sample and to examine the sociodemographic and clinical correlates of BZD use. A cross-sectional study of 1752 elderly people (aged > or = 65 y) who completed a mailed medication survey and a telephone health status survey. Participants were invited to participate in a l...

Previous studies have shown that dental utilization by older people is lower than for the general population. This study hypothesizes that an elder's tendency toward participating in preventive health activities may be an important factor in explaining the likelihood of accessing the dentist. Subjects included 1,911 older individuals who enrolled i...

Previous studies suggest a discrepancy between the way dentists and patients measure oral health. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between a dentist's rating of an older dentate person's oral health and the patient self-rating using a single-item indicator, and to compare the clinical (i.e., number of teeth, caries, etc.)...

To determine patient factors that predict use of physical or occupational therapy (PT/OT) services by elderly people. Time-series study of the relationship of PT/OT use to a variety of characteristics present at baseline. Eight-hundred nine community-dwelling men and women aged 65 and older. The Medicare Screening and Health Promotion Trial at UCLA...

This paper describes the effort of the California Geriatric Education Center (CGEC) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to rectify the severe shortage of social work faculty trained in aging as reported in a recent national survey of schools of social work. The lack of gerontological social work faculty is a major barrier to the dev...

The present studv reports the results of a nationwide survey which examined the current status of gerontological education in B.S.W. and M.S.W. proprams. The survey findings register a decline in gerontological curricula but an increase in student intrest in aging. The survey also notes that lack of trained faculty and a full curriculum are most of...

Enrollment of senior citizens in a community Medicare demonstration project to explore the efficacy of preventive health screening and health education was accomplished by using a two-stage process. This process consisted of initial communication with community physicians through the University of California at Los Angeles Clinical Faculty Associat...

The study compared age/sex norms and alcohol consumption of a sample of Japanese from Japan and Japanese Americans in Hawaii and California. Age norms included acceptable drinking levels for the following age groups: 16, 21, 40 and 60, both male and female. There were significant differences in norms across the sites with the Japanese in Japan hold...

An increasing number of older people are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer's Disease or another dementias. The resultant cognitive impairment has been well identified as one of the risk factors for nursing home placement but it has not been well studied as a risk for hospitalization. To study the association between cognitive impairment and ho...

We use data from a random sample of 5,454 elderly participants in the California Preventive Health Care for the Aging Program to identify gender and age differences in health screening practices. We present a framework to facilitate an evaluation of current targeting of services by gender and age. This framework clarifies where targeting based on a...

Control of hypertension is increasingly being recognized as a significant component of any preventive health care program for the elderly because of the high prevalence of hypertension in this group and its impact on health, particularly cardiovascular diseases. This study evaluates the hypertension screening component in one of the oldest and larg...

The purpose of the present study was to describe the health practices of the elderly poor and to examine the association between specific health practices and subsequent hospital use. Data came from a sample of 931 Medicaid elderly living in California. Smoking, limited social networks, and lack of regular exercise significantly increased the odds...

Because of the rising percentage of elderly in the population and the cost of health care expenditures, interest has increased in preventive health care services for the aging. Although the effectiveness of such programs is still being discussed by policy makers, the number of preventive health programs for the elderly is increasing. One of the old...

This article challenges the commonly held beliefs that there are few if any heavy drinkers among Asian-Americans and that different groups of Asians exhibit similar patterns of drinking. To explore these stereotypes, alcohol consumption patterns were compared in a survey of 298 Chinese, 295 Japanese and 280 Koreans in Los Angeles. Heavy drinking wa...

Gender and ethnic differences in personal health practices were examined with a sample of 1021 Medicaid recipients aged 65 years and older. Six different health practices were examined including smoking, drinking, weight control, exercise, and social networks. Although gender differences were noted with respect to all of the health practices examin...

The purpose of this study was twofold: to identify characteristics distinguishing Korean-American drinkers from abstainers and to clarify differences between those who drink smaller versus larger amounts of alcohol. A random sample of 280 Korean adults was interviewed using a schedule based on Cahalan's national study of drinking behavior and attit...

There has been increased interest in developing health promotion programs for the rural elderly as a means to foster successful aging. The present study describes one such program and identifies rural and urban differences in health promotion activities. Data come from the California Preventive Health Care for the Aging Program (PHCAP) which is one...

Empirical data on Japanese American drinking behavior are scarce. The present study was a random sample (N = 295) of households in Los Angeles with Japanese surnames. Japanese Americans born in the United States tended to drink less than those born in Japan. The study also observed significant gender differences in Japanese American drinking behavi...

The purpose of this research was to identify the characteristics that distinguish male Chinese drinkers from abstainers and to clarify differences between Chinese men who drink limited amounts of alcohol and those who drink more heavily. A random sample of 218 adult Chinese men was interviewed using a schedule based on a national study of drinking...

The purpose of this article was to explore characteristics distinguishing levels of drinking by Filipino Americans. A sample of 298 adult Filipinos was interviewed using a schedule based on a national study of drinking behavior and attitudes. Approximately 50% of the female sample were abstainers while 80% of the men were drinkers. Heavy drinking w...

The present study examined the influence of widowhood on the psychological well-being of low income elderly women and men while controlling for a number of mediating variables. Both widows and widowers were found to have lower psychological well-being than their married counterparts once health and social network differences were controlled. Health...

This book brings together leading researchers in the field of aging to begin to define the concept of quality of life in the later years, to outline the issues of its measurement, and to evaluate existing interventions. It includes reviews of the literature; a report on a survey designed to assess and compare perceptions of quality of life among ol...