Exploring Paths to Differential Disability Trajectories

University Of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this research is to examine the causal pathways leading to long term disability trajectories in later life. The project will enhance our understanding of how older adults experience disability differentially over time and will explore the mechanisms at work in the observed disability declines in the U.S. among this age group. Demographic and socioeconomic factors are highly predictive of both disability level and transition. In addition, intra-individual characteristics and extra-individual factors are hypothesized to mitigate these relationships, although these effects have rarely been tested. Using a life course centered approach and known theory on the disablement process, I will first use latent class analysis to determine the chronic conditions most predictive of differential disability trajectories in older adulthood. Next, I will incorporate the use of latent growth curves to test the effects of intra-individual characteristics and extra-individual factors in the pathway from disease to disability. Finally, I will use event history analysis to explore the role of mortality both as a selective and competing force in comparison to disability over time. The effects of cohort will be of primary importance in this project, since these effects speak to factors fueling trends in disability decline.