title: Perceived Social Support Trajectories and the All-Cause Mortality Risk of Older Mexican American Women and Men.
abstract: Although numerous studies of non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks show that social integration and social support tend to favor longevity, it is unclear whether this general pattern extends to the Mexican American population. Building on previous research, we employed seven waves of data from the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly to examine the association between perceived social support trajectories and the all-cause mortality risk of older Mexican Americans. Growth mixture estimates revealed three latent classes of support trajectories: high, moderate, and low. Cox regression estimates indicated that older Mexican American men in the low support trajectory tend to exhibit a higher mortality risk than their counterparts in the high support trajectory. Social support trajectories were unrelated to the mortality risk of older Mexican American women. A statistically significant interaction term confirmed that social support was more strongly associated with the mortality risk of men.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA tdhill@email.arizona.edu.
authors.forename: Terrence D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Bert N
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Uchino
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
authors.forename: Jessica L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Eckhardt
authors.affiliation: School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Jacqueline L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Angel
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000208:ethnology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017058:Mexican Americans / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009026:Mortality; D012944:Social Support
keywords: H-EPESE; Mexican American; elderly; gender; mortality risk; social support