The proposed dissertation will examine acculturation among 252 older African-Americans living in the community in Tampa, FL as it relates to quality of life (QOL). The major hypothesis is that while more traditional African-Americans will have a poorer objective QOL, they will have a better subjective QOL, even after adjustment for objective QOL.
Specific aims are: (1) to investigate the association between acculturation and objective QOL in this population; (2) to examine the relation of acculturation to subjective QOL adjusting for objective QOL; (3) to test whether persons who are more acculturated have a greater concordance between objective and subjective QOL compared with more traditional African-Americans; (4) to compare data on QOL between the proposed study and an ongoing study of 500 community-dwelling Caucasians who are part of an ongoing study that is methodologically standardized to the current study; and (5) to generate hypotheses for future research. Participants for the study will be recruited from randomly selected U.S. Census blocks in two selected tracts in Hillsborough County, FL (#10 and 18). A community campaign will advertise the study to inform the community before contacting potential participants. In each tract, a study census will enumerate all persons aged 60-84 living in the selected blocks, and 63 persons aged 60-74 and aged 75-84 will be selected for study in each tract. Participants will be asked to take part in two 2-hour in-person interviews, as well as complete a self-administered questionnaire between interview visits. The U.S. African-American population has been shown to have poorer overall objective health indicators compared with Caucasians. Despite this, they rate their satisfaction with life higher than might be expected. In order to understand and eventually maximize quality of life in older African-Americans, it is essential to identify the cultural factors that predict these outcomes. This has not been reported previously in the literature, and is critical to explore as the elderly African-American population grows.
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| Dotson, Vonetta M; Schinka, John A; Brown, Lisa M et al. (2008) Characteristics of the Florida cognitive activities scale in older African Americans. Assessment 15:72-7 |
| Jang, Yuri; Borenstein-Graves, Amy; Haley, William E et al. (2003) Determinants of a sense of mastery in African American and White older adults. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 58:S221-4 |
