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Older Americans Act Related Homebound Aged: What Difference Does Racial Baclkground Make?
Abstract
This research examined racial differences in wellbeing among 440 older persons receiving home based services connected with Older Americans Act funded nutrition sites. These data clearly indicate that compared with white homebound aged, black aged receiving homebased services have more limited economic resources and live in more impoverished neighborhoods, are more irnpaired in their health and functional status, have more limited social resources and have more limited knowledge and access to services. Service utilization appears similar for both groups and the life perspective of blacks is somewhat higher than that of white homebound aged.
... Some studies have addressed the relevance of race/ethnicity to differentials in the utilization and knowledge of health and social services among the elderly (Bass & Noelker, 1987;Cantor & Mayer, 1975;Coulton & Frost, 1982;Harel, 1987;Holmes, Teresi, & Holmes, 1983;Mindel & Wright, 1982;Spence & Atherton, 1991;Wolinsky et al., 1983). However, increasing diversity of minority populations and limited research on minority elders in general, combined with variations in research methods and types of services investigated, render available knowledge too limited and inconsistent for conclusive generalizations. ...
... They also reported that knowledge of community resources and activity limitation were the most important predictors of service use. Other studies (Harel, 1987;Lee & Yee, 1988;Spence & Atherton, 1991) suggest lack of knowledge about community services as central to ethnic elders' low utilization rates. Lee (1987) further attributes Asian American elders' underutilization of formal social services to five factors: culturally inappropriate services, Asian values, historical discrimination, organizational barriers, and social alienation. ...
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 terms. This finding challenges the success of the Older Americans Act, an important funding source of those services, in meeting its stated objectives to increase service availability and delivery to minority elders and socioeconomically disadvantaged elders. Strategies for effective outreach and public education efforts are also discussed.
... Evaluated health focuses on aclual clinical judgments. Theoretically, the model assumes that service utilization would be higher among those with predisposing characteristics, such as being female, older, low status, and pro-government intervention (Coulton and Frost, 1982;Harel, 1987;Joseph and Cloutier, 1990;Krout, 1983a;Starrett and Decker, 1987). The findings on resources are contradictory. ...
The effect of extreme social isolation and use of community‐based senior services on longevity was examined in a national sample of African American elderly women (ages 55–96). Consistent with previous research on the social integration/mortality link, African American elderly women who were extremely socially isolated were hypothesized to have a higher 5‐year mortality rate. It was also hypothesized that use of community senior services would be negatively associated with 5‐year mortality. Results of logistic regression analysis controlling for age, education, income, and health status found that extremely socially isolated African American elderly women were three times more likely than the nonisolated women to die within the 5‐year period from the initial survey. Use of community senior services did not have a relationship on mortality. Results are discussed in terms of directions for future research and intervention.
Stress at work is a relatively new phenomenon of modern lifestyles. The nature of work has gone through drastic changes over the last century and it is still changing at whirlwind speed. They have touched almost all professions, starting from an artist to a surgeon, or a commercial pilot to a sales executive. Whether we live in a small village of India or Manhattan city of USA stress is a common phenomena. This book has tried to cover the various factors causing workplace stress in the life of office staff. After analyzing the data on the basis of the results the author also suggest various effective and useful tools to make a better working environment. The book is very handy, useful and insight for small and middle size organization managers and leaders.
This paper explores the differences between apparently similary impaired black elders who either were placed in nursing homes or received in-home services. The two groups differed most consistently in how they talked about the progression of their illness and how they described their reaction to it. Home care clients had experienced illness for a long time; they struggled for independence and were determined to define themselves as competent. In contrast, nursing home residents portrayed themselves as having been toppled by a health crisis; they defined themselves as incompetent and accepted others' definition of them as incompetent. The two groups also differed in the limit of their informal support. It is suggested here that the concept of the limit of support adds a useful dimension for exploring the relationship between institutionalization and informal support. It is also suggested that the participants' perception of their functional status and of their informal support was influenced by their health histories.
Older African-Americans face many barriers that impede access to formal support services. Therefore, informal social networks may be the only source of support for many elderly African-Americans. This study looked at three measures of informal social networks: contacts with family members, contacts with friends, and social involvement outside the home. Data were from the 1984-1988 Longitudinal Survey of Aging. Bivariate associations with lower mortality occurred for all three social network indices. When controlling for sociodemographic, physical health variables, and self-rated health in logistic regression, church attendance retained significance. Men appeared to be at high risk when social network was limited. Other significant factors were: cancer, activities of daily living, sex-specific body mass, and self-rated health.
The effect of extreme social isolation and use of community-based senior services on longevity was examined in a national sample of African American elderly women (ages 55-96). Consistent with previous research on the social integration/mortality link, African American elderly women who were extremely socially isolated were hypothesized to have a higher 5-year mortality rate. It was also hypothesized that use of community senior services would be negatively associated with 5-year mortality. Results of logistic regression analysis controlling for age, education, income, and health status found that extremely socially isolated African American elderly women were three times more likely than the nonisolated women to die within the 5-year period from the initial survey. Use of community senior services did not have a relationship on mortality. Results are discussed in terms of directions for future research and intervention.
Purpose
The purpose of this review is to identify and examine relationships between exposure to violence and health promotion behaviors in low-income black and Latino groups.
Design
Based on computer surveys of the psychologic, public health, medical, and sociologic literature, approximately 90 previous studies of the impact of exposure to violence on psychologic functioning, perceptions of health and well-being, and health decisions and behavior were identified. This article reviews those studies that examine the relationships between experiences of violence and subsequent feelings of alienation, powerlessness, and hopelessness, and perceptions of health and well-being and studies that examine relationships between alienation, hopelessness, and powerlessness and health promotion behaviors. Studies of health promotion behavior that did not examine or address the impact of exposure to violence are not reviewed in this article.
Results
Violence affects low-income communities directly by contributing to rates of mortality, and indirectly by affecting health promotion behaviors. Exposure to violence can result in feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness, and alienation that significantly limit motivation, the extent of involvement, and persistence in overcoming barriers to health promotion behavior.
Conclusions
Future researchers must consider the confounding effects of exposure to violence when investigating differences in health promotion behaviors for low-income black and Latino groups. Community empowerment programs that address the impact of violence and focus on developing control over life and health outcomes may be needed to successfully address the effect of violence on health promotion behavior in low-income, black and Latino communities.
The purposes of the study reported on in this article were: (a) to explore the measurement of social need among the elderly, and (b) to develop an appropriate method for including social need in funding allocation procedures. Interview responses from over 4,000 randomly selected elderly persons were used to identify the demographic correlates of those having the most restrictions in their every-day lives. Procedures for intrastate allocations were developed using variables suggested by the Older Americans Act and by research to explain variance in activities of daily living. Variables tested for the model were: age, income, living arrangement, gender, ethnicity, area of residence, occupation, hospitalization, years in the neighborhood, language at home, and utilization of senior services. Prediction formula weights were adjusted (magnitude of beta i/sigma magnitude of beta i) to allocate resources to the proportions of 10 "high-need" groups residing in each planning area: the population aged 75 and older, the proportion of hospital discharges of elderly patients, elderly females, elderly non-Caucasians, the elderly not completing high school, elderly farm workers, elderly urban residents, a proportion for participation in senior services, for low-income elderly persons, and for the elderly not living with their spouses. Compared to current systems, the proposed procedure provides a closer fit to the actual needs of the elderly.
This study is an attempt to compare and explain the differences in extended family cohesion of black and white families. The black family is not approached as deviant or pathological, but from the view of a separate subculture within a pluralistic society. Comparisons were made in terms of both intensity and extensity of interaction of black and white families with their extended kin. Specific comparisons were made of contact and help patterns, number of kin living in the household, and salience of kin. It is shown that the extended kin network is a more salient structure for black families than it is for white families.
Since a great number of older Americans are either immigrants or the children of immigrants, and many others have spent much of their lives in ethnic communities, it is important to understand the influence of ethnic families on the social well being of the elderly. This paper looks at ethnic variations in the structure of the nuclear family, interdependence between generations, and the relationship between the family and the wider society. The older person's social integration cannot be understood by looking objectively at his activities and interactions, but requires an awareness of the meaning which activities and relationships have for him.
Two consumer groups of the Older Americans Act programs were compared in this research: the homebound and the users of nutrition programs. Comparisons were made on demographic characteristics, health and functional status, personal security, social resources, life perspective, and on knowledge about and access to services. Not unexpectedly, findings from this research revealed that the homebound are older, more socially impoverished, more impaired on health and functional status, have more limited resources, poorer life perspective, and less access to services. These findings clearly indicate that needs of those who benefit from Older Americans Act programs are great and many of them would be unable to continue their community living without these services.
In semistructured interviews, measures of familism (i.e., incidence and nature of nuclear and/or extended family members in the community) were administered to 143 Anglo, 160 Black, and 152 Mexican-American adults in families with at least 1 child in parochial or public elementary school. Results show that Mexican-Americans had the highest levels of extended familism and Anglos the least. Analysis of the effects of migration indicated that Anglos moved away from the kin network while Mexican Americans and, to a lesser extent, Blacks moved toward or within the network. (Spanish abstract) (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Misunderstood and stereotyped, the black family in America has been viewed by some as pathologically weak while others have acclaimed its resilience and strength. Those who have drawn these conflicting conclusions have gnerally focused on the nuclear familyâhusband, wife, and dependent children. But as Elmer and Joanne Martin point out in this revealing book, a unit of this kind often is not the center of black family life. What appear to be fatherless, broken homes in our cities may really be vital parts of strong and flexible extended families based hundreds of miles awayâusually in a rural area. Through their eight-year study of some thirty extended families, the Martins find that economic pressures, including federal tax and welfare laws, have begun to make the extended family's flexibility into a liability that threatens its future.
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