title: Examination of the association of age, disability, and mood among Jewish older adults in Israel.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between chronological age, disability and mental health in later life. Secondary analysis of data from a national probability sample of Jewish persons age 60 and over in Israel (n = 2,079) was employed. Mental health, measured on a 12-item mood scale, was successively regressed on age, sociodemographic characteristics, functional disability and physical health status, and on the interaction of age and disability. A significant negative association between age and mood emerged when confounding variables were not controlled (beta = -0.19). This association remained, to a lesser degree, after sociodemographic variables were entered (beta = -0.11). The addition of disability and health variables reversed the direction of the association (beta = 0.05). Finally, the entry of the interaction term (age x disability) bolstered the net association of age and mood (beta = 0.27). The analysis underscored the interaction of age and disability as a major threat to mental health in current aging cohorts.
authors.affiliation: Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, The Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel. mshowie@mscc.huji.ac.il
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Litwin
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D007585:Jews / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012044:Regression Analysis