Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Author ORCID Identifier

Debasree Das Gupta https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9854-5313

David W.S. Wong https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0525-0071

Volume

20

Issue

4

Publisher

MDPI AG

Publication Date

2-20-2023

First Page

1

Last Page

14

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Abstract

Frequent mental distress (FMD) is prevalent among older Americans, but less is known about the disparities in the FMD of older adults living in multigenerational families versus living alone. We pooled cross-sectional data (unweighted, n = 126,144) from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) between 2016 and 2020 and compared the FMD (≥14 poor mental health days in the past 30 days = 1; 0 otherwise) of older adults (≥65 years) living in multigenerational families versus living alone in 36 states. After controlling for covariates, the findings indicate 23% lower odds of FMD among older adults living in multigenerational households compared to counterparts living alone (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 0.77; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.60, 0.99). The findings also show that the reduction in the odds of FMD with each 5 year increase in age was larger among older adults living in multigenerational families by 18% (AOR: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.46, 0.70) compared to older adults living alone (AOR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.71, 0.77), and this difference was significant at the 5% significance level. Multigenerational living may have a protective association with FMD among older adults. Further research is needed to identify multigenerational family and non-kin factors that translate into mental health advantages for older adults.

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