This proposal involves a pilot project which in itself is expected to provide important findings and which will also lead to a full-scale proposal. The goal of this research is to conduct a two-year longitudinal study of the relationships among psychosocial variables and measures of dental and physical health status. Based upon a model proposed, it is expected that physical and oral disease and physical and dental health status will predict the quality of life and (physical and oral health) functioning of elderly persons, and that these effects will be mediated by psychological variables such as social participation, ethnic identity, depression, anxiety, loneliness, a sense of mastery, optimism, self- esteem, cognitive functioning, and social support. Contextual variables such as marital status, income, education, and religiosity will also be examined. Access to, utilization of, and attitudes toward dental care, as well as dental health care habits will be assessed as mediators. The effects on causal models of age, gender, ethnic group, and being dentate or edentulous will be carefully examined. These data will be collected by personal interview and questionnaire in a longitudinal study of 200 elderly persons in four age cohorts, 60's (n=75; 37.5%), 70's (n=75; 37.5%), 80's (n=35; 17.5%) and 90's (n=15; 7.5%). The sample will be 60% White (n=120), 20% Hispanic (n=40) and 20% Black (n=40) recruited from a relatively rural (total town population 15,786) low income retirement village which houses 1597 elderly persons. The population of this village is 58% female and 42% male, and the sampling of this study will reflect this percentage. Interview and questionnaire assessments will be made one year apart. Subjects will be paid 10 dollars for their participation at each of two waves of data collection. The data will be analyzed using t- tests, correlations, multiple regression models, and LISREL multivariate causal modelling.
