title: Relationships among health factors and everyday problem solving in african americans.
abstract: This study examined whether measures of health status enhance the prediction of performance on everyday problem solving in adult African Americans. The sample consisted of 209 community-dwelling African American adults with a mean age of 66.82 years (SD=7.95). The following variables were included in the analysis: Everyday Problems Test (EPT), summary index of chronic illnesses (cardiovascular disease, hypertension, arthritis, stroke, and diabetes), self-rated health (current health, health in the past month, health compared with others, health compared with 5 years ago), and demographic information. Using hierarchical regression and follow-up communality analysis, the authors found that the number of chronic illnesses and self-rated health as compared with 5 years prior were significant and unique predictors of performance on the EPT but did not account for all of the demographic-related variance. The results indicate that health indices contribute to the variability in everyday cognition in this understudied population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16803, USA. kew5@psu.edu.
authors.forename: Keith E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Whitfield
authors.forename: Jason C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Allaire
authors.forename: Sebrina A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Wiggins
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001294:Attitude to Health; D044383:Black People / Q000523:psychology*; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011340:Problem Solving; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D001741:Black or African American