title: Social Supports as Enabling Factors in Nursing Home Admissions: Rural, Suburban, and Urban Differences.
abstract: This study investigates differences in social support and nursing home admission by rurality of residence. We use discrete-time event history models with longitudinal data from seven waves (1998-2010) of the Health and Retirement Study to prospectively examine the risk of spending 30 or more days in a nursing home (n = 5,913). Results show that elders with a health problem who live in rural areas of the South or Midwest have approximately 2 times higher odds of nursing home entry than elders living in urban areas in the Northeast. Rural elders report somewhat higher social support than non-rural elders, and controlling for these forms of social support does not explain the higher risk of a nursing home stay for Southerners and Midwesterners living in rural areas. Results suggest that social support has a similar association with nursing home entry for rural, suburban, and urban elders.
authors.affiliation: Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, USA thegerontologist@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Adrienne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.affiliation: Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Jennifer Roebuck
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Bulanda
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D015984:Causality; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009735:Nursing Homes; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012944:Social Support; D013383:Suburban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: nursing home; rural aging; social support