
Lois M VerbruggeUniversity of Michigan | U-M · Population Studies Center
Lois M Verbrugge
MPH, MA, PhD
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114
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (114)
Reciprocity is a powerful motivation in social life. We study what older people give to their family for help received. Data are from the Panel on Health and Aging of Singaporean Elderly, Wave 2 (2011; persons aged 62+; N = 3103). Giving and receiving help are with family members other than spouse in the same household, in the past year. Types of h...
This analysis brings “aging with disability” into middle and older ages. We study U.S. adults ages 51+ and ages 65+ with persistent disability (physical, household management, personal care; physical limitations, instrumental activities of daily living [IADLs], activities of daily living [ADLs]), using Health and Retirement Study data. Two compleme...
Top themes of international research on disability in the past three decades are discussed: disability dynamics, buffers and barriers for disability, disability trends, and disability among very old persons. Each theme is highlighted by research examples. Turning to measurement, I discuss traditional measures of disability, new longer and shorter o...
Objectives:
We study changes in average disability over nearly two decades for a large epidemiological cohort of older Americans. As some people exit by mortality, do average disability levels for the living cohort rise rapidly, rise gradually, stay steady, or decline?
Method:
Data are from the Study of Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest O...
Objectives: This is the first analysis that demonstrates empirically the likely tie between activities (time spent) and disability (health-related difficulty in activities). We compare trends in activities and disability for Americans ages 55 to 69 in recent years, and assess cross-sectional linkages of activities and disability. Methods: Data are...
Objectives: This study reports findings on functional change trajectories for long-stay residents by examining the effects of baseline medical conditions and functional status on changes in physical impairment across residents’ length of stay (LOS). Method: A 5% sample of nursing home residents from Michigan from 1999 through 2003 was used to creat...
Arthritis is the most common health condition in midlife and late life, and heart disease is the leading cause of death. This article compares disability impacts of these 2 preeminent health problems.
Using data from the National Health Interview Survey Disability Supplement, we studied specific limitations and disabilities, accommodations used (bu...
Asian societies maintain the norm that older people should live with their children. Yet some older people live alone. This is the first study to explore social isolation, strategies of coping, and preferences about living arrangements among Chinese Singaporeans aged 65+ who live alone. Data from 19 semi-structured interviews were analyzed. The eld...
Reciprocity is a powerful principle in social ties. The ethos of family reciprocity is especially strong in Asian societies. We study contemporaneous family exchanges, hypothesising that the more current help older Singaporeans receive from family, the more they give in return. Cross-sectional analyses were undertaken of data from two national Sing...
How do older people with disabilities feel about assistance? What do “independence,” “dependence,” and “disability” mean to them? The authors interviewed 34 American and 30 Singaporean people aged 70 years and older and compared their responses using quantitative and qualitative analyses. The U.S. seniors insisted on being in charge of their daily...
Arthritis is the most common chronic condition and the most common cause of disability among older US adults. We studied social participation, disabilities in many life domains, accommodations used (buffers), and accommodations needed (barriers) for US adults with arthritis disability compared with adults with disability from other conditions.
The...
Objective: Disability symptoms are tiredness, slowness, and pain doing daily tasks made difficult by health. The authors study factors that increase and decrease disability symptoms, especially effects of equipment and personal assistance. Method: In National Health Interview Survey Disability Supplement Phase 2, people with personal care and house...
This epidemiologic study reports incidence, severity, and risk factors of swimmer's itch (cercarial dermatitis). Daily diaries about water exposures and swimmer's itch symptoms were completed by 40 riparian households at Douglas Lake, Michigan, for July 2000. Minutes spent in the water, minutes in shallow water, location, time of day, preventive ac...
Swimmer's itch (cercarial dermatitis) affects people engaged in open-water activities. We report incidence and risk factors for a US lake. Water exposures and swimmer's itch experience were reported daily for riparian household residents and guests at Douglas Lake, Michigan, in July 2000. Incidence of swimmer's itch was 6.8 episodes per 100 water e...
Severity and timing are key aspects of disability experience for individuals. They also generate a population's disability structure (prevalence, counts, patterns). We study links among severity, duration, and structure for community-dwelling adults in the US.
The data source is the National Health Interview Survey Disability Supplement. Disabiliti...
IntroductionDisability Levels Are Not UnambiguousConceptual Thinking about DisabilityA Wide Range of Disability MeasuresSome Widely Used Measures of DisabilityThe Choice of Measure Is ConsequentialData Collection IssuesCriteria for Harmonization of Disability MeasuresConclusions
References
We study disability duration and two aspects of disability timing (simultaneous vs. gradual onset; childhood vs. adulthood onset) for U.S. community-dwelling adults. The data set is the National Health Interview Survey Disability Supplement. Disabilities in personal care, household management, and physical tasks are analyzed. Results show that most...
Personal and equipment assistance are often used to reduce disability. This study predicts use of assistance, type of assistance, and its efficacy (improvement with assistance) for disabilities in personal care and household management tasks.
U.S. community-dwellers aged 55+ are studied using the 1994-1995 National Health Interview Survey Disabilit...
People with early-onset disabilities are said to "age with disability," while those with mid- or late-life onsets are said to have "disability with aging." This is stereotypic since disability and aging are processes that interleave across the whole life course. We show this empirically by studying duration of disabilities by age in the U.S. commun...
Using the 1994–95 National Health Interview Supplement Disability Supplement, the authors study levels of disabilities and accommodations among US adults with arthritis disability, compared to people with disability due to other conditions.
Arthritis-disabled people are defined in two ways. One definition covers a broad range of arthritis and rheum...
This paper is an integrated analysis of newspaper coverage, epidemiological rates, and recent social history of six prominent diseases.
Newspaper coverage of a disease has three developmental stages (emergence, maturation, and decline & death). Trends in newspaper coverage of a disease reflect trends in its mortality, prevalence, and incidence. Mag...
This chapter discusses health and diseases in midlife. According to this chapter, midlife is a relatively new phenomenon in human history. In the beginning of the 20th century, infectious diseases were the primary cause of death. With the advent of better nutrition and sanitation, and the discovery of antibiotics, mortality rates were reduced so dr...
Health surveys, especially those for older persons, include numerous detailed items about disability. There has been little effort to develop a global disability item, that is, one question that covers the concept of disability briefly but well. This article discusses how parsimony can be achieved through a single item, or less desirably by reducti...
Recent reviews of scientific work on subjective well-being (SWB) reveal disagreements in conceptualization, measurement, and explanation of the concept. We propose Social Production Function theory as a framework to resolve them. Social Production Function (SPF) theory integrates strengths of relevant psychological theories and economic consumer/ho...
Primary objective: Health surveys, especially those for older persons, include numerous detailed items about disability. There has been little effort to develop a global disability item, that is, one question that covers the concept of disability briefly but well. This article discusses how parsimony can be achieved through a single item, or less d...
Introduction:
we have tested the hypothesis that the co-occurrence of common impairments (motor and cognitive impairments, vision and hearing loss, depressive symptoms) of later life have exacerbating effects on disability [activities and instrumental activities of daily living, social and role function, (in)activity].
Method:
data were drawn fr...
Introduction: we have tested the hypothesis that the co-occurrence of common impairments (motor and cognitive impairments, vision and hearing loss, depressive symptoms) of later life have exacerbating effects on disability [activities and instrumental activities of daily living, social and role function, (inactivity]. Method: data-were drawn from a...
Disability is difficulty performing roles and activities due to health problems. It is largely experienced by older persons as they accumulate progressive chronic conditions. To measure functional status of individuals and populations, contemporary surveys include sets of detailed items about disability. Little effort has gone into developing globa...
This study examined relationships between three sensory and communication abilities and two areas of nursing home resident behavior. Data from 18,873 nursing home residents include measures of hearing, visual, and communication abilities, and social engagement and time spent in activities. Increasing level of visual impairment is associated with lo...
Personal and equipment assistance are common strategies to reduce disability. This study sought to determine how often assistance reduces or even completely resolves health-related difficulties in everyday tasks.
Data are from the NHANES I Epidemiologic Followup Study. Adults aged 35 to 90 reported difficulty doing 12 everyday tasks on their own wi...
This study examines cross-sectional age differences, longitudinal age changes, and secular changes in obligatory, committed, and discretionary activities, using activity questionnaire completed by men and women participants in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging between 1958 and 1992. (1) Time spent, on obligatory activities and passive leisu...
Gender differences in the prevalence and impact of arthritis are discussed, using data and analytic results from national health surveys.
Most cases of arthritis are osteoarthritis, an ancient disease that causes pain, physical dysfunction, and social disability, but not death. Arthritis prevalence rates rise sharply with age; it is the leading chr...
This paper analyzes the impact of seven chronic conditions (three nonfatal: arthritis, visual impairment, hearing impairment; four fatal: ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, malignant neoplasms) on US adults aged 18 and older. Impact refers to how readily a condition prompts activity limitations, physic...
Objectives and Methods. Gender differences in the prevalence and impact of arthritis are discussed, using data and analytic results from national health surveys. Results. Most cases of arthritis are osteoarthritis, an ancient disease that causes pain, physical dysfunction, and social disability, but not death. Arthritis prevalence rates rise sharpl...
Disability refers to the impacts that chronic conditions have on people's ability to act in necessary, expected and personally
desired ways in their society. Scientists are now working to trace trajectories of disability over time for individuals and
identify factors that propel and slow disability's pace. Their work is guided by conceptual schemes...
There is growing awareness that age results in reduced strengths in the population, and that significant decreases start in the 5th decade. The magnitude of the decrease in strength depends on the specific muscle function being tested. Because of differential effects it is not clear how various decreases could alter whole-body strength performance....
For persons with serious chronic morbidity, disability is a very dynamic process as morbidity advances or retreats, and as interventions succeed or fail. This article studies trajectories of function (cognitive, emotional, social, physical, and global well-being) over a year for 165 persons whose chronic morbidity prompted a hospital stay. Changes...
Building on prior conceptual schemes, this article presents a sociomedical model of disability, called The Disablement Process, that is especially useful for epidemiological and clinical research. The Disablement Process: (1) describes how chronic and acute conditions affect functioning in specific body systems, generic physical and mental actions,...
This article reports changes over 2 years in physical, activities of daily living (ADL), and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) disabilities for older U.S. adults with arthritis, compared to those without arthritis. The data source is the 1986 Longitudinal Study on Aging, a follow-up survey of community-dwelling persons ages 70 and over...
Survival curves are a visual aid to help us think about interrelationships between chronic morbidity, disability, and mortality. Prevalence rates indicate a population's morbidity and disability status at given times. The curves and rates are both residues of very dynamic processes: Chronic conditions may be alleviated as well as progress; function...
This article studies the excess levels of disability experienced by persons with arthritis, compared to persons without the disease. The data set is the Supplement on Aging (1984 National Health Interview Survey); it has information for a national probability sample of community-dwelling persons ages 55 + (N = 16,148). (1) Arthritis people have mor...
This article studies risk factors for physical and social disability among U.S. adults ages 55+ who have arthritis, compared to non-arthritis persons of those ages. The dependent variables refer to difficulties in walking, physical functioning (motions and strength), personal care, and household care. The data set is the Supplement on Aging (SOA) (...
Physical, mental, and social disability are defined. A sociomedical scheme for disability research is presented. How physical and social disability are measured in general health surveys and in arthritis research is described and evaluated. Societal and individual impacts of arthritis are distinguished. The public health importance of arthritis com...
offers a sociological perspective on [physical, mental, and social] disability [among the elderly], compares current health survey perspectives with the sociological perspective, and suggests a survey strategy that yields more true-to-life information about disability / pivotal themes of our discussion are that (1) disability is a gap between perso...
Health statistics routinely show higher morbidity and health services use for women, while mortality rates are higher for men. This analysis empirically identifies reasons for women's poorer health. It is based on retrospective (interview) and prospective (health diaries) data from the Health In Detroit Study. Three kinds of risk factors, which may...
Longitudinal data that track the course of disability and well-being are being collected for older populations, with remeasurements taken at annual or longer intervals. These can miss much of the genuine dynamics that older people experience. This analysis uses a data set with fine-grained data on health and function. It involves 165 persons ages 5...
Older people often suffer from comorbidity, or several chronic conditions simultaneously. Disability rises rapidly as the number of chronic conditions grows, although very ill people who acquire another condition experience attenuated increases. High prevalence conditions such as arthritis tend to have a low or occasionally moderate impact for comm...
Research on the health care behavior of older adults in response to symptoms will benefit from having data collection methods that can monitor health actions as they occur on a daily basis. In the present study, symptom experiences over a 2-week period and the actions taken in response to them were studied with a self-kept daily diary. Participants...
Despite the importance of daily symptoms for people's quality of living, they are seldom studied (thus, the "iceberg of morbidity"). We begin by reviewing United States and British studies that have information on daily symptoms experienced by adults. The most common ones are respiratory (largely from colds) and musculoskeletal (largely from arthri...
Despite the importance of daily symptoms for people's quality of living, they are seldom studied (thus, the "iceberg of morbidity"). We begin by reviewing United States and British studies that have information on daily symptoms experienced by adults. The most common ones are respiratory (largely from colds) and musculoskeletal (largely from arthri...
It is common knowledge that females tend to live longer than males. In the United States and most other countries, female death rates are lower than male rates for all age groups and most important causes of death. But while they are alive, females' health seems to be worse than males'. Health surveys repeatedly show that females have higher rates...
The majority of women today simultaneously occupy demanding work and family roles. In 1980, 60 percent of women between 16 and 64 years of age were employed (76). Yet women continue to shoulder the main responsibilty for household tasks and childcare. It is often suggested that women's multiple responsibilities and attendant role conflicts will hav...
This article traces health from daily symptoms to death for American (U.S.) men and women in three age groups 17-44, 45-64, 65+. How do leading problems change as our perspective shifts from daily symptoms to annual incidence and prevalence rates of diseases and injuries; then to problems that induce long term limitations; to conditions brought to...
This article looks at role burdens experienced by women and men, asking if heavy burdens are linked with poor physical health status and frequent health care. The role burden variables refer to job schedule, feelings about roles and life, time constraints and pressures, family dependency, and levels of role involvement and responsibility. The data...
This is a "state of the issue" paper about gender and physical health. It organizes the hypotheses proposed for male-female differences in physical health status, therapeutic health behaviors, and longevity and it summarizes empirical research, especially sociological research, on the topic over the past 10-15 years. Capsule summaries of sex differ...
This article examines how often physicians prescribe therapeutic drugs to men and women who present the same complaints or receive the same diagnoses. Data are from the 1975 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and pertain to visits made by U.S. adults to office-based physicians that year. For most common complaints and diagnoses, women receive...
This article studies triggers of physical symptoms and health care on a daily basis. The data used are health diaries kept for 6 weeks by 589 adults in metropolitan Detroit. The results show that bad moods consistently trigger physical problems and health actions (medical drug use, medical care, lay consultation, restricted activity) for men and wo...
The statistical results concur closely with descriptive ones presented earlier, indicating that the latter are not results of random variations. The main effects of employment, the contingent effects of parenthood, and the time trends modeled here are the same as reported earlier. (Only two differences occur. First, among white married women, mothe...
A recent study of San Diego patients found that men received more extensive and appropriate diagnostic workups than women did for five common complaints (Armitage, K. J., Schneiderman, L. J., & Bass, R. A. Journal of the American Medical Association 1979, 241 2186–2187). This article is a broader analysis of medical care given to men and women for...
This article discusses the physical health status of contemporary older women (aged 65 and over) in comparison to older men, using data from ongoing national health surveys and vital statistics. The article reviews older women's and men's life expectancy after 65 and recent trends in their mortality rates. It then looks extensively at data on physi...
The Framingham Heart Study has reported high rates of coronary heart disease among clerical women, compared to other working women and housewives. Using data from the National Health Interview Survey, we find that U.S. clerical women have the best overall profile compared to other occupation groups. They have low injury and chronic limitation rates...
There is speculation that women receive different medical care than men because physicians have stereotyped views about women's symptoms and treatment preferences. This paper asks if men and women who visit physicians for mental distress receive comparable medical care and, if not, whether medical considerations or psychosocial ones explain the dif...
The marked decline in mortality rates for those aged 45 years and over during the past decade is an imperfect measure of improvement in the nation's health. Most indicators of chronic disease and disability suggest an increased pool of poor health. Specific medical advances and broad social changes explain the seemingly contradictory data from the...
Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25457/1/0000907.pdf
Research on the effects of multiple roles on women's health has in the past been conducted within the context of two competing hypotheses: the scarcity hypothesis and the expansion hvpothesis. Empirical evidence is more supportive of the expansion t& the scarcity hypothesis, i.e., women who occupy several roles are healthier than those with few. Ho...
Increasingly, young American women are engaged in multiple roles, combining job and family responsibilities. To investigate the links between role groups (employment, marriage, parenthood), and pressures, satisfactions, and physical health among young women, a subsample of 162 white women, aged 18 to 34, drawn from the 1978 Health in Detroit Study,...
Women use more legal drugs of all types (preventive, curative, prescription, nonprescription) than men do. This paper studies personal characteristics that encourage drug use by adults and how those characteristics help explain women's greater use. Data are from a general population survey of white adults in metropolitan Detroit, which has informat...
This analysis asks how satisfaction with one's main work role (whether that is a paid job or housework) is related to physical health. Data from a Detroit survey show that: (1) Dissatisfied people have poorer health status and take more curative health actions than do satisfied people. The dissatisfied people have higher health risks due to more sm...
Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68868/2/10.1177_016402758134007.pdf
Health status and health behavior of males and females in the United States are compared; the data employed in the analysis are from community studies and the surveys of the National Center for Health Statistics. Females generally show a higher incidence of acute conditions, higher prevalence of minor chronic conditions, more short-term restricted...
This paper considers medical care given by physicians to men and women in the United States. It asks how often significant sex differences in care occur, and if these differences are attributable to medically relevant factors or not. Sex differences in diagnostic services, therapeutic services, and dispositions for follow-up are studied for All Vis...
The classical theory about effects of high residential density is "negative," stating that high density produces negative social attitudes and undesirable behaviors. Yet empirical re search usually finds density only weakly related to individuals' attitudes and behavior. A survey was conducted in Baltimore for three purposes: to test "negative" hyp...
This paper examines male-female differences in complaints and diagnoses for ambulatory care visits. Data are from the 1973 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, a national probability survey of visits to office-based physicians. The results suggest that: (1) Men are often unaware of serious health problems, they delay seeking diagnosis and care...
In the 1970s, the United States population experienced a notable drop in mortality rates, after several decades of relative stability. Has this increased longevity been enjoyed equally by males and females, so that sex mortality differentials are essentially the same as before? Or has one sex benefited more than the other? This paper focuses on the...
A health diary is a prospective procedure to obtain reports of morbidity (illness and injury), disability and health actions. Health diaries have been used for 3 purposes: in methodologic studies to compare reporting levels for retrospective and prospective procedures; as memory aids to improve recall of health events in a later, retrospective inte...
“Multiplexity” is the overlap of roles, exchanges, or affiliations in a social relationship. In two cities, adult friendship
dyads are examined for multiplexity in three affiliations: kin, neighbor, and coworker. Several factors are proposed to account
for multiplex ties: limited opportunities for social contact; preference for the special similari...
In the United States, mortality rates are higher for nonmarried people than married people, and are especially high for the formerly married. To determine if morbidity and disability reveal the same differentials, age-adjusted data from the Health Interview Survey, Health Examination Survey, 1960 and 1970 Censuses of Population, and other federal h...
Health surveys repeatedly show that females have higher rates of illness, disability days, and health services utilization than do males. Numerous reasons for these sex differences have been hypothesized, based on four general factors thought to differ by sex and to influence self-reported health: genetic characteristics, physical risks, illness be...
Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/22738/1/0000293.pdf
Previous research has demonstrated the predominance of personal (rather than mass media) communications in recruitment of people to adopt contraception. In this analysis, the author focussed on the activity of contraceptors in recruiting their peers to contraception. Which users are more likely to influence peers to adopt? The effects of social, de...
This paper examines bias toward status-similarity in adult friendships in Detroit and a West German city. Principles of meeting
and “mating,” by which strangers are converted to acquaintances and acquaintances to friends, are stated. One of these, the
proximity principle, claims that the more similar people are, the more likely they will meet and b...
Data from the national Health Interview Survey for 1957-72 show that females have higher age-standardized rates of acute conditions, chronic conditions, and disability due to acute conditions, compared to males. More males, however, suffer limitations of activity or mobility due to chronic conditions, Females' excess morbidity for acute conditions...