PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS AND HEALTH AMONG THE OLDEST OLD

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The study is a pilot project addressing an understudied issue of high priority for NIA: the oldest old and the psychosocial factors affecting their health. Specifically, it focuses on the influence of social characteristics, life stressors, social supports and coping on the development and process of physical health problems among this target group. The data are from a three-wave panel study of 480 women aged 50 and over, interviewed in 1978, 1979, and 1984, who are representative of older women in Madison, Wisconsin. The proposed study will utilize data from the 277 women who participated in both 1978 and 1984, focusing on the 72 respondents who were age 75 or older at the time of the 1984 interview. Step one will be to test measures of key constructs. Analyses will identify the best indicators of the constructs and the relationships among different measures of key constructs. Step two will develop the psychosocial factors and health model. A series of smaller models will be tested, the results of which will be utilized to make preliminary assessments of a larger model. We plan to look at the old-old and (1) assess the effects of social characteristics on health status, (2) assess factors mediating the impact of social characteristics on health status, (3) assess factors buffering the impact of life stressors on health status, and (4) repeat selected analyses with the younger old to assess the uniqueness of the findings to the old-old. Step three will extend the model longitudinally. We will assess the impact of life stressors, social supports, or coping on health status changes. We will also examine changes in health status and the effects of intervening acute health events and social supports and coping techniques specific to health problems. This pilot study will generate measures and hypotheses which we intend to use in a future study of psychosocial factors and health among the old-old.