Sex, Health Behaviors and Social Support: Functional Decline among Older Diabetics
- 1 University of Michigan, Afghanistan
Abstract
Problem statement: Men and women experience pronounced differences in functional decline as they age. The mechanisms behind these differences remain unclear, particularly among chronically ill populations. Drawing on the theory of the disablement process, this research examines sex differences in functional decline, focusing on two mechanisms suggested by the literature to partially mediate these disparities: health behaviors and social support. Approach: Data from diabetics aged 50 and older from the Health and Retirement Study (n = 2,493) were examined for change in functional status over a 10-year period. Multivariate longitudinal multi-level models were conducted to analyze (1) health behavior (2) social support; and (3) a full model with health behavior and social support together, followed by a separate analysis using sex interaction terms. Results: Women and men both experienced functional decline over time. In the models that examined health behaviors and social support separately, women experienced steeper rates of decline. In the full model (which included health behaviors and social support together), men experienced a steeper rate of decline relative to women. The analyses suggest that it is the combination of health and social characteristics (largely through engagement in socially supportive activities that promote health) that are protective against functional decline. Conclusion/Recommendations: As diabetic men experienced a steeper rate of functional decline than diabetic women once health behaviors and social support were both held constant, future research must examine (a) how these protective factors operate in tandem to protect against disablement of women with diabetes; and (b) how clinical and social policy can promote multi-pronged interventions to improve health behaviors in supportive contexts. Such research will benefit from multi-disciplinary collaborations.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/amjsp.2012.82.92
Copyright: © 2012 Emily Joy Nicklett. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Sex/gender
- diabetes
- functional status
- older adults
- risk/protective factors