Sunshine Rote, Phil Cantu, Jacqueline Angel, Heehyul Moon, Felipe Antequera, Kyriakos Markides
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, older adults and their caregivers reported reduced autonomy and disruptions in medical care and community-based services such as adult day centers, and these disruptions likely had the greatest impact on caregivers from health disparity populations. We utilize data on adult child caregivers to the oldest-old from two complementary datasets, the Hispanic Establish Population for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly Caregiver Supplement (HEPESE CG, 2021) and the National Health and Aging Trends COVID-19 Family Members and Friends Dataset (NHATS FF, 2020-2021). We identify the relationship between financial strain and both mental well-being and sleep health for non-Hispanic White (NH White, n = 198), non-Hispanic Black (NH Black, n = 44), and Mexican American (n = 66) caregivers. Most caregivers reported frequent loneliness, depression, and emotional strain during the pandemic. Caregiving-related financial strain was significantly related to mental health and sleep health for Mexican American caregivers and to emotional strain for NH White caregivers. General financial strain due to the pandemic was related to changes in sleep patterns for both NH Black and Mexican American caregivers. ADL assistance, co-residence, and memory care were related to poorer outcomes for NH White caregivers while co-residence was associated with better outcomes for Mexican American caregivers. Taken together, this work provides valuable insight into the impacts of financial strain for adult child caregivers to the oldest-old during public health shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology is an international and interdisciplinary journal providing a forum for scholarly discussion of the aging process and issues of the aged throughout the world. The journal emphasizes discussions of research findings, theoretical issues, and applied approaches and provides a comparative orientation to the study of aging in cultural contexts The core of the journal comprises a broad range of articles dealing with global aging, written from the perspectives of history, anthropology, sociology, political science, psychology, population studies, health/biology, etc. We welcome articles that examine aging within a particular cultural context, compare aging and older adults across societies, and/or compare sub-cultural groupings or ethnic minorities within or across larger societies. Comparative analyses of topics relating to older adults, such as aging within socialist vs. capitalist systems or within societies with different social service delivery systems, also are appropriate for this journal. With societies becoming ever more multicultural and experiencing a `graying'' of their population on a hitherto unprecedented scale, the Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology stands at the forefront of one of the most pressing issues of our times.