Race Disparities in Health Among Older Adults: Examining the Role of Productive Engagement‪.‬

Race differences in morbidity and mortality are visible across the life course and persist well into later life. Individuals who are members of some minority groups face the prospects of shorter life expectancies, poorer health outcomes at all ages, and longer periods of chronic disease and disability at the end of life. These disparities have given rise to intensive research seeking to determine their causal pathways and develop interventions. Health inequalities by race have been found to result from variations in socioeconomic status (SES) (Hayward, Crimmins, Milies, & Yang, 2000), social context (Waite & Hughes, 1999), community-level factors (Robert & Lee, 2003), social activity (Clark & Maddox, 1992), health behavior (Berrigan, Dodd, Troiano, Krebs-Smith, & Barbash, 2003), and the complex interactions among these factors (Williams, 2002). Productive engagement--that is, paid and unpaid involvement in activity producing goods or services--is likewise shaped by social and cultural forces that differentially act on individuals based on gender, age, and race (Hinterlong, Morrow-Howell, & Sherraden, 2001). It also exhibits a positive relationship to physical health and mortality (Glass, Mendes de Leon, Marottoli, & Berkman, 1999). Yet, its contribution to health disparities has been infrequently considered. This is the first study to explore how the functional status and self-rated health of older African American and white adults relate to productive engagement. RACE AND PRODUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT