IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v71y2010i8p1418-1427.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Disability and self-rated health among older women and men in rural Guatemala: The role of obesity and chronic conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Yount, Kathryn M.
  • Hoddinott, John
  • Stein, Aryeh D.

Abstract

Unprecedented population aging in poorer settings is coinciding with the rapid spread of obesity and other chronic conditions. These conditions predict disability and poor self-rated health and often are more prevalent in women than men. Thus, gender gaps in obesity and other chronic conditions may account for older women's greater disability and worse self-rated health in poor, rural populations, where aging, obesity, and chronic conditions are rapidly emerging. In a survey of 604 adults 50 years and older in rural Guatemala, we assessed whether gender gaps in obesity and other chronic conditions accounted for gender gaps in disability and self-rated health. Obesity strongly predicted gross mobility (GM) disability, and the number of chronic conditions strongly predicted all outcomes, especially in women. Controlling for gender gaps in body-mass index (BMI) and especially the number of chronic conditions eliminated gender gaps in GM disability, and controlling for gender gaps in the number of chronic conditions eliminated gender gaps in self-rated health. We recommend conducting longitudinal cohort studies to explore interventions that may mitigate adult obesity and chronic conditions among poor, rural older adults. Such interventions also may reduce gender gaps in later-life disability and self-rated health.

Suggested Citation

  • Yount, Kathryn M. & Hoddinott, John & Stein, Aryeh D., 2010. "Disability and self-rated health among older women and men in rural Guatemala: The role of obesity and chronic conditions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(8), pages 1418-1427, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:71:y:2010:i:8:p:1418-1427
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(10)00583-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Knai, Cecile & Suhrcke, Marc & Lobstein, Tim, 2007. "Obesity in Eastern Europe: An overview of its health and economic implications," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 392-408, December.
    2. Eleanor M. Simonsick & Judith D. Kasper & Jack M. Guralnik & Karen Bandeen-Roche & Luigi Ferrucci & Rosemarie Hirsch & Suzanne Leveille & Taina Rantanen & Linda P. Fried, 2001. "Severity of Upper and Lower Extremity Functional Limitation," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 56(1), pages 10-19.
    3. Courtenay, Will H., 2000. "Constructions of masculinity and their influence on men's well-being: a theory of gender and health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(10), pages 1385-1401, May.
    4. Nicholson, Amanda & Bobak, Martin & Murphy, Michael & Rose, Richard & Marmot, Michael, 2005. "Socio-economic influences on self-rated health in Russian men and women--a life course approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(11), pages 2345-2354, December.
    5. Kathryn Yount, 2008. "Gender, resources across the life course, and cognitive functioning in Egypt," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(4), pages 907-926, November.
    6. Stuck, Andreas E. & Walthert, Jutta M. & Nikolaus, Thorsten & Büla, Christophe J. & Hohmann, Christoph & Beck, John C., 1999. "Risk factors for functional status decline in community-living elderly people: a systematic literature review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 445-469, February.
    7. Bowen, Mary Elizabeth, 2009. "Childhood socioeconomic status and racial differences in disability: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study (1998-2006)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 433-441, August.
    8. Orfila, Francesc & Ferrer, Montserrat & Lamarca, Rosa & Tebe, Cristian & Domingo-Salvany, Antonia & Alonso, Jordi, 2006. "Gender differences in health-related quality of life among the elderly: The role of objective functional capacity and chronic conditions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(9), pages 2367-2380, November.
    9. Kathryn Yount & Emily Agree, 2005. "Differences in disability among older women and men in Egypt and Tunisia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(1), pages 169-187, February.
    10. Zunzunegui, Maria-Victoria & Alvarado, Beatriz-Eugenia & Béland, François & Vissandjee, Bilkis, 2009. "Explaining health differences between men and women in later life: A cross-city comparison in Latin America and the Caribbean," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 235-242, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Siddhivinayak Hirve & Johan Oud & Somnath Sambhudas & Sanjay Juvekar & Yulia Blomstedt & Stephen Tollman & Stig Wall & Nawi Ng, 2014. "Unpacking Self-Rated Health and Quality of Life in Older Adults and Elderly in India: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 105-119, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ilke Onur & Malathi Velamuri, 2016. "A Life Course Perspective on Gender Differences in Cognitive Functioning in India," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 520-563.
    2. Pruchno, Rachel & Wilson-Genderson, Maureen & Heid, Allison R. & Cartwright, Francine P., 2021. "Effects of peri-traumatic stress experienced during Hurricane Sandy on functional limitation trajectories for older men and women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    3. Davin, Bérengère & Paraponaris, Alain & Verger, Pierre, 2009. "Socioeconomic determinants of the need for personal assistance reported by community-dwelling elderly: Empirical evidence from a French national health survey," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 138-146, January.
    4. Sánchez-Sandoval, Yolanda & Aragón, Claudia & Verdugo, Laura, 2022. "Future expectations of adolescents in Residential Care: The role of self-perceptions," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    5. Clarke, Philippa & Ailshire, Jennifer A. & Lantz, Paula, 2009. "Urban built environments and trajectories of mobility disability: Findings from a national sample of community-dwelling American adults (1986-2001)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 964-970, September.
    6. Pollitt, Amanda M. & Donnelly, Rachel & Mernitz, Sara E. & Umberson, Debra, 2020. "Differences in how spouses influence each other's alcohol use in same- and different-sex marriages: A daily diary study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    7. Valéria Teresa Saraiva Lino & Nádia Cristina Pinheiro Rodrigues & Mônica Kramer de Noronha Andrade & Inês Nascimento de Carvalho Reis & Lucília Almeida Elias Lopes & Soraya Atie, 2019. "Association between visual problems, insufficient emotional support and urinary incontinence with disability in elderly people living in a poor district in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: A six-year follow-up," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-12, May.
    8. Melander, Stina, 2023. "Different logics of pain: the gendered dimension of chronic pain in a relational setting," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 335(C).
    9. Wiklund, Maria & Bengs, Carita & Malmgren-Olsson, Eva-Britt & Öhman, Ann, 2010. "Young women facing multiple and intersecting stressors of modernity, gender orders and youth," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(9), pages 1567-1575, November.
    10. Parker, Rhiannon & Larkin, Theresa & Cockburn, Jon, 2017. "A visual analysis of gender bias in contemporary anatomy textbooks," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 106-113.
    11. Dagmar Sigmundová & Erik Sigmund & Jana Vokáčová & Jaroslava Kopčáková, 2014. "Parent-Child Associations in Pedometer-Determined Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour on Weekdays and Weekends in Random Samples of Families in the Czech Republic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-19, July.
    12. Fabio Ferretti & Andrea Pozza & Maurilio Pallassini & Lorenzo Righi & Fulvia Marini & Sabrina Adami & Anna Coluccia, 2019. "Gender invariance of dignity in non-terminal elderly patients with chronic diseases: a multicentric study," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 1645-1656, May.
    13. Michelle Calvarese, 2015. "The Effect of Gender on Stress Factors: An Exploratory Study among University Students," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-8, November.
    14. Oliffe, John, 2005. "Constructions of masculinity following prostatectomy-induced impotence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(10), pages 2249-2259, May.
    15. Yuji Kanejima & Kazuhiro P. Izawa & Masahiro Kitamura & Kodai Ishihara & Asami Ogura & Ikko Kubo & Hitomi Nagashima & Hideto Tawa & Daisuke Matsumoto & Ikki Shimizu, 2022. "Health Literacy Is Associated with Activities of Daily Living of Patients Participating in Cardiac Rehabilitation: A Multicenter Clinical Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-10, December.
    16. Madsen, Julian & Jobson, Laura & Slewa-Younan, Shameran & Li, Haoxiang & King, Kylie, 2024. "Mental health literacy among Arab men living in high-income Western countries: A systematic review and narrative synthesis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 346(C).
    17. Hatcher, Abigail M. & Gibbs, Andrew & McBride, Ruari-Santiago & Rebombo, Dumisani & Khumalo, Mzwakhe & Christofides, Nicola J., 2022. "Gendered syndemic of intimate partner violence, alcohol misuse, and HIV risk among peri-urban, heterosexual men in South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 295(C).
    18. Månsdotter, Anna & Lundin, Andreas, 2010. "How do masculinity, paternity leave, and mortality associate? -A study of fathers in the Swedish parental & child cohort of 1988/89," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 576-583, August.
    19. Fogel, Robert W., 2009. "Forecasting the cost of U.S. Health Care in 2040," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 482-488, July.
    20. Dahlin, Johanna & Härkönen, Juho, 2013. "Cross-national differences in the gender gap in subjective health in Europe: Does country-level gender equality matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 24-28.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:71:y:2010:i:8:p:1418-1427. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.