Differences in the Progression of Disability: A U.S.–Mexico Comparison

Abstract

ObjectivesThis article seeks to document the progression of disability in a developing country by implementing a model to examine how this process compares to a developed country.MethodsData come from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS), including a baseline survey in 2001 and a follow-up in 2003, and from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS), using the 2000 and 2002 waves. An ordinal logistic regression approach is used to examine a progression of disability that considers (a) no disability, (b) mobility problems, (c) mobility plus limitations with instrumental activities of daily living, (d) mobility plus limitations with activities of daily living (ADLs), (e) limitations in all three areas and (f) death.ResultsIn both data sets, approximately 44% of the sample remained in the same level of disability at the 2-year follow-up. However, the progression of limitations with two disabilities differs by gender in the MHAS but is consistent for both men and women in the HRS.DiscussionOur model reflects the importance of ADLs in the disablement process in Mexico. We speculate that the difference in lifetime risk profiles and cultural context might be responsible for the divergence in the progression of disability by gender.

Adult children's education and changes to parents' physical health in Mexico

“…Multivariate analyses are not weighted because longitudinal weights are unavailable. This follows recent research using MHAS data that also does not use weights for similar reasons (e.g., Díaz-Venegas et al, 2016). …”

Why spouses depress each other: A cross‐national study to test the shared resource hypothesis in depressive symptom concordance within older adult couples

“…The scale of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CESD) was used to measure older adults' depressive symptoms in the HRS‐series studies. The numbers of items in the CESD were different in the four harmonized datasets (eight items in HRS, nine items in MHAS, eight items in ELSA, and ten items in CHARLS), so average scores were used to make results comparable similar to previous cross‐national studies using HRS‐series data (e.g.,Díaz‐Venegas, Reistetter, & Wong, ). We further rescaled the CESD scores by the least common multiple (i.e., 360) of the number of items in the four datasets.…”

Cross-national health comparisons using the Rasch model: findings from the 2012 US Health and Retirement Study and the 2012 Mexican Health and Aging Study

“…The significance of comparative physical function research lies in the ability to understand how populations exposed to different social and policy contexts are likely to age. Previous studies reported that gender [8] and age [9] influence disability progressions between Americans and Mexicans. For instance, Gerst-Emerson et al [9] reported that U.S. adults are more likely than Mexican adults to be disabled or have an increased number of disabilities within 2-year transition.…”

“…For instance, Gerst-Emerson et al [9] reported that U.S. adults are more likely than Mexican adults to be disabled or have an increased number of disabilities within 2-year transition. In addition, Díaz-Venegas et al [8] reported that Mexican adults have different patterns of disability progression across genders compared to adults in developed countries, such as the US. However, few studies have been designed to compare the health of the two populations across various chronic conditions and socioeconomic factors.…”