Social Determinants of Health and Functional Disability at Mid- and Late-life

The number and proportion of older adults living in the U.S. and globally are increasing. Not only are more adults living longer (Rania et al., 2021), there is evidence that people are entering late life with more functional disability than in previous generations (He & Larsen, 2014). Social determinants of health include demographic and environmental influences than can impact a range of health outcomes beyond more direct risk factors (Duran and Perez-Stable, 2019). Using data from 243,693 community-dwelling adults who completed the 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey, we tested the associations among social determinants of health (i.e., age, sex, race), chronic health conditions, depression, and functional ability. Results of the analyses suggest an acceptable fit of the model to the data, Χ2 (DF = 18, N = 243,693) = 19512.64, p \u3c .001; CFI = .364; TLI = .774; RMSEA = .066; R2 Function = .267; R2 Chronic Health Conditions = .056; R2 Depression = .024. The findings from the present study provide further support to previous research that age, sex, and racial background differences influence depression diagnosis, chronic health conditions, and disability status