Abstract
Background: Although social, behavioral, and health factors correlate with depressive symptoms, less is known about these links among economically disadvantaged African American (AA) older adults. Objective: To study social, behavioral, and health correlates of depressive symptoms among economically disadvantaged AA older adults. Methods: This survey was conducted in South Los Angeles between 2015 and 2018. A total number of 740 AA older adults (age ≥55 years) were entered to this study. Independent variables were gender, age, educational attainment, financial difficulties, living alone, marital status, smoking, drinking, chronic medical conditions (CMCs), and pain intensity. The dependent variable was depressive symptoms. Linear regression model was used to analyze the data. Results: Age, financial difficulties, smoking, CMCs, and pain intensity were associated with depressive symptoms. Gender, educational attainment, living arrangement, marital status, and drinking were not associated with depressive symptoms. Conclusion: Factors such as age, financial difficulties, smoking, CMCs, and pain may inform programs that wish to screen high risk economically disadvantaged AA older adults for depressive symptoms.
Highlights
While a variety of social, behavioral, and health factors contribute to and correlate with depression [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8], certain factors and their influence may vary across race/ethnicity [9,10,11]
To better understand predictors of depressive symptoms in economically disadvantaged AA older adults [63,64,65,66], this study explored the roles of gender, age, Socioeconomic status (SES) indicators, living alone, marital status, smoking, drinking, chronic medical conditions (CMCs), and pain intensity on depressive symptoms
The current study revealed that among this sample of AA older adults residing in an economically disadvantaged setting, age, financial difficulties, smoking, CMCs, and pain intensity were associated with depressive symptoms
Summary
While a variety of social, behavioral, and health factors contribute to and correlate with depression [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8], certain factors and their influence may vary across race/ethnicity [9,10,11]. Research has often found that factors, such as socioeconomic status, gender, and health behaviors, are associated with depression across the general population [4,20,21] Objective: To study social, behavioral, and health correlates of depressive symptoms among economically disadvantaged AA older adults. Independent variables were gender, age, educational attainment, financial difficulties, living alone, marital status, smoking, drinking, chronic medical conditions (CMCs), and pain intensity. Conclusion: Factors such as age, financial difficulties, smoking, CMCs, and pain may inform programs that wish to screen high risk economically disadvantaged AA older adults for depressive symptoms
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