Familial Abuse During Childhood and Later-Life Health: Exploring the Role of Victim-Perpetrator Relationships.

Objectives: Childhood abuse has been extensively studied in relation to later-life health, yet relatively little attention has been given to understanding the nuanced dynamics across victim-perpetrator relationships. This study addresses this gap by identifying typologies of familial perpetrators of childhood abuse in a national sample and examining their associations with various health outcomes, including physical and mental health as well as substance abuse.

Methods: We used 2 waves of data from the Midlife in the US Study (n = 6,295, mean age = 46.

Racial Disparities in Cognitive Health Among Older Americans: The Role of Debt-Asset Profiles During Preretirement Age.

Objectives: Low-cost debt can potentially enhance wealth and indirectly benefit health, yet Black Americans disproportionately lack this type of debt, which may constrain their ability to accumulate wealth throughout their lives and across generations. Our objectives are to develop a novel debt-asset measure, use it to quantify the Black-White differential in debt-asset profiles, and estimate its contribution to the racial gap in cognition.

Methods: Using the Health and Retirement Study (1998-2020), we grouped individuals based on debt and asset information during the preretirement period of ages 55-61, including the absence of debt and the relative amount of debt compared to assets.

Social Participation and Persistent Smoking Among Older Chinese With Smoking-Related Morbidity.

Objectives: Chronic diseases are common in midlife and old age and smoking can pose more health and longevity challenges for older people with chronic illnesses. In China where smoking is highly prevalent, older adults are likely to continue smoking even after developing severe chronic diseases. We examined the national prevalence of persistent smoking among older adults.

Cognition and Mortality Risk Among Midlife and Older Americans.

Background: Cognitive impairment is associated with increased mortality rates in late life, but it is unclear whether worse cognition predicts working-age mortality.

Methods: The data come from a U.S.

Gendered racial disparities in health of parents with children with developmental disabilities.

Background: There is little information on (1) how adverse experiences in early life are associated with the risk of having a child with health problems and (2) whether the health of racial and gender minority groups would be particularly compromised if they have developmentally disabled (DD) children.

Objective: By integrating life-course perspectives and the intersectionality framework, we examine (1) the extent to which parents' early-life adversities (ELAs) are associated with having children with DD or other health issues and (2) whether the association between having DD children and parental (physical and mental) health varies across race-gender groups after accounting for ELAs.

Methods: Using data from Black and White parents from the Midlife in the US Study ( = 7,425; 18% Black), we employed (1) multinomial logistic regression models to investigate the degree to which ELAs are associated with parenting types (having a child with DD, a child with recent illness, or a child without these health issues) and (2) multiple regression models with a three-way interaction term to investigate whether the gender-parenting type association differs by race.

Social Mobility and Sense of Purpose From Midlife to Old Age: Examining the Role of Major Life Events.

Purpose in life (PIL) has been linked with numerous health benefits and adaptive aging, yet it diminishes with age, possibly due to loss of social or familial roles through life transitions. Drawing from the longitudinal surveys of the Midlife in the US study ( = 3418), we use time-varying coefficient models to investigate how the trajectory of PIL differs across cumulatively (dis)advantaged, upwardly mobile, and downwardly mobile groups and the role of major life events in shaping these trajectories. We found the upwardly mobile group exhibits higher PIL than the cumulatively disadvantaged and downwardly mobile groups.

Income, wealth, and Black-White disparities in cognition.

We investigated the contributions of income and wealth (beyond education) to Black-White disparities in cognition and evaluated whether the role of socioeconomic status (SES) varies by age. Based on data from a national survey of Americans (aged 23-94), we used regression models to quantify the overall racial disparities in episodic memory, executive function, and overall cognition, adjusted for sex and age. Potential mediators (i.

Assessment of Mortality Disparities by Wealth Relative to Other Measures of Socioeconomic Status Among US Adults.

Importance: The association between wealth and mortality is likely to be nonlinear and may result from selection and reverse causality.

Objective: To compare the magnitude of mortality disparities by wealth relative to other measures of socioeconomic status (SES).

Design, Setting, And Participants: This population-based cohort study began in 1995 to 1996, with approximately 18 years of mortality follow-up.

Gender, Tobacco Control Policies, and Persistent Smoking Among Older Adults: A Longitudinal Analysis of 11 European Countries.

Introduction: Little is known about sociodemographic and macro-level predictors of persistent smoking when one has developed a health condition that is likely caused by smoking.

Aims And Methods: We investigate the impact of gender, education, and tobacco control policies (TCPs) on persistent smoking among older Europeans. Respondents (aged 50 +) with a smoking history and at least one smoking-related health condition were pooled from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) from four waves from 2004 to 2013.

Intersectionality in quantitative health disparities research: A systematic review of challenges and limitations in empirical studies.

Rationale: Quantitative health disparities research has increasingly employed intersectionality as a theoretical tool to investigate how social characteristics intersect to generate health inequality. Yet, intersectionality was not designed to quantify, predict, or identify health disparities, and, as a result, multiple criticisms against its misapplication in health disparities research have been made. As such, there is an emerging need to evaluate the growing body of quantitative research that aims to investigate health disparities through an intersectional lens.

Socioeconomic disparities in U.S. mortality: The role of smoking and alcohol/drug abuse.

Prior studies have identified smoking as a key driver of socioeconomic disparities in U.S. mortality, but the growing drug epidemic leads us to question whether drug abuse is exacerbating those disparities, particularly for mortality from external causes.

Cardiovascular Health at the Intersection of Race and Gender: Identifying Life-Course Processes to Reduce Health Disparities.

Objectives: Cardiovascular health (CVH) is associated with reductions in age-related disease and later-life mortality. Black adults, particularly Black women, are less likely to achieve ideal CVH. Guided by intersectionality and life-course approaches, we examine to what degree (a) disparities in CVH exist at the intersection of race and gender and (b) CVH disparities would be reduced if marginalized groups had the same levels of resources and adversities as privileged groups.

Conscientiousness and Smoking: Do Cultural Context and Gender Matter?

Prior studies have found that conscientiousness has a protective effect against smoking, but evidence for this relationship mostly comes from Western contexts. In societies where smoking is pervasive and less stigmatized, the protective effect of conscientiousness on smoking may be less evident. Moreover, whether smoking is viewed as normal or deviant also may vary by gender norms attached to smoking.

Early-Life Adversities and Recalcitrant Smoking in Midlife: An Examination of Gender and Life-Course Pathways.

Background: Little is known about life-course factors that explain why some individuals continue smoking despite having smoking-related diseases.

Purpose: We examined (a) the extent to which early-life adversities are associated with the risk of recalcitrant smoking, (b) psychosocial factors that mediate the association, and (c) gender differences in the associations.

Methods: Data were from 4,932 respondents (53% women) who participated in the first and follow-up waves of the Midlife Development in the U.

Pathways linking combinations of early-life adversities to adult mortality: Tales that vary by gender.

Rationale: Socioeconomic disadvantage, family instability, and abuse are widely studied early-life adversities (ELAs) that may co-occur in the lives of many. The detrimental effects of these adversities may result in elevated risk of mortality in midlife and old age.

Objective: We investigate how combinations of these three ELAs affect later-life mortality and the life-course mediators that explain the associations.

Examining Cumulative Inequality in the Association Between Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Body Mass Index From Midlife to Old Age.

Objectives: Socioeconomic status (SES) is among the strongest determinants of body mass index (BMI), particularly for women. For older populations, selection bias due to attrition is a large barrier to assessing the accumulation of inequality. Under multiple missing data mechanisms, we investigated the extent to which childhood and midlife SES affects BMI from midlife to old age and gender differences in the association.

Gender differences in the pathways from childhood disadvantage to metabolic syndrome in adulthood: An examination of health lifestyles.

We investigate whether socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood shapes adult health lifestyles in domains of physical activity (leisure, work, chores) and diet (servings of healthy [i.e., nutrient-dense] vs.

Social Disadvantage, Severe Child Abuse, and Biological Profiles in Adulthood.

Guided by the stress process model and the life course perspective, we hypothesize: (1) that childhood abuse is concentrated, in terms of type and intensity, among socially disadvantaged individuals, and (2) that experiencing serious abuse contributes to poor biological profiles in multiple body systems in adulthood. Data came from the Biomarker subsample of Midlife in the United States (2004-2006). We used latent class analysis to identify distinct profiles of childhood abuse, each reflecting a combination of type and severity.

Spousal Breadwinning Across 30 Years of Marriage and Husbands' Health: A Gendered Life Course Stress Approach.

Objective: Wives increasingly outearn their husbands, and gender relations theory suggests this arrangement may undermine men's well-being. We explore how long-term histories of spousal breadwinning may be associated with older men's self-rated mental and physical health, and risk of nine health diagnoses.

Method: Using 30 years of couple-level income data from the Health and Retirement Study ( n = 1,095 couples), we use latent class analyses to identify six classes that differ with respect to the timing and level of wife breadwinning.

Children's Education and Parents' Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms.

Using five waves of the Taiwanese Longitudinal Study of Aging (1996-2011), we investigate (1) the association between family members' education and the age trajectories of individuals' depressive symptoms and (2) gender differences in those relationships. Our examination is guided by several theoretical frameworks, including social capital, social control, age as leveler, and resource substitution. Nested models show that having a more educated father is associated with lower depressive symptoms, but the relationship disappears after controlling for respondent's education.

Childhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Occupational, Leisure-Time, and Household Physical Activity, and Diabetes in Adulthood.

Background: Regular physical activity is a key way to prevent disease. However, we have a limited understanding of the socioeconomic precursors and glucoregulatory sequelae of engaging in physical activity in different domains.

Methods: We examined the associations among life course socioeconomic disadvantage; meeting the physical activity guidelines with leisure-time physical activity, occupational physical activity, or household physical activity; and prediabetes and diabetes in the Midlife in the United States national study (N = 986).

Adult Children's Education and Physiological Dysregulation Among Older Parents.

Objectives: Despite growing awareness that children's education benefits the health of older parents, the underlying mechanisms of this relationship are not well-understood. We investigated (a) the associations between children's education and biological functioning of parents, (b) psychosocial and behavioral factors that explain the associations, and (c) gendered patterns in the associations.

Methods: Using longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of older Taiwanese, we performed mediation analysis of the association between adult children's education and physiological dysregulation of their parents.

Early parenthood as a link between childhood disadvantage and adult heart problems: A gender-based approach.

Drawing on conceptual models of critical periods, major life transitions, and life pathways, we proposed that the life-course features of parenthood are important, but understudied, mechanisms for explaining possibly gendered heart-health outcomes. Using three waves from the Midlife in the U.S.

Increases in blood glucose in older adults: the effects of spousal health.

Objective: The death or illness of a spouse negatively affects a partner's health, but little is known about the effect on blood glucose (glycemic) levels. This study investigates the extent to which a spouse's declining health or death is associated with changes in the glycemic levels of older adults.

Method: Data come from a nationally representative longitudinal sample of 597 Taiwanese (aged 54 to 90).