title: What Type of Social Support Influences Self-Reported Physical and Mental Health Among Older Women?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We examined which types of social support were associated with older women's self-report of physical and mental health and whether the effects of social support were moderated by race/ethnicity.
  
  
  METHODS
  Women completed a health behavior survey that included the Medical Outcomes Study-Short Form-12 (MOS SF-12). Single race/ethnic group regressions examined whether different types of social support were related to health. We also examined Pratt's relative importance measures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Emotional support had the strongest effect on both physical and mental health, explaining the highest amount of variation, except among African Americans. Race/ethnicity moderated the association of informational support for Asian women's reports of their mental health.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  For clinicians, assessing individuals' emotional support is important for maintaining or increasing physical and mental health. Clinicians can also assess Asian women's stress, providing informational support accordingly as too much information could be detrimental to their health. For researchers, the inclusion of emotional support items is the most important.
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, School of Nursing and Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, Vancouver, Canada University of California, San Francisco, USA sabrina.wong@nursing.ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Sabrina T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, School of Nursing and Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, Vancouver, Canada.
authors.forename: Amery
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: University of California, San Francisco, USA.
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gregorich
authors.affiliation: University of California, San Francisco, USA.
authors.forename: Eliseo J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Pérez-Stable
keywords: African American; Chinese; Latino; emotional support; ethnicity; language
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