IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v16y2019i10p1826-d233629.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Substance Use among Economically Disadvantaged African American Older Adults; Objective and Subjective Socioeconomic Status

Author

Listed:
  • Shervin Assari

    (Departments of Family Medicine, College of Medicine, Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA 90059, USA)

  • James Smith

    (Departments of Family Medicine, College of Medicine, Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA 90059, USA)

  • Ritesh Mistry

    (Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA)

  • Mehdi Farokhnia

    (Section on Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA)

  • Mohsen Bazargan

    (Departments of Family Medicine, College of Medicine, Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA 90059, USA
    Departments of Family Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA)

Abstract

Purpose . This study investigated the effects of objective and subjective socioeconomic status (SES) indicators on two health behaviors, cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking, among African American older adults. Methods. This community-based study recruited 619 economically disadvantaged African American older adults (age ≥ 65 years) residing in South Los Angeles. Structured face-to-face interviews were conducted to collect data. Data on demographic factors (age and gender), subjective SES (financial difficulties), objective SES (educational attainment), living arrangement, marital status, healthcare access (insurance), and health (number of chronic medical conditions, self-rated health, sick days, depression, and chronic pain) and health behaviors (cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking) were collected from participants. Logistic regressions were used to analyze the data. Results. High financial difficulties were associated with higher odds of smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, independent of covariates. Educational attainment did not correlate with our outcomes. Similar patterns emerged for cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking. Conclusion . Subjective SES indicators such as financial difficulties may be more relevant than objective SES indicators such as educational attainment to health risk behaviors such as cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking among African American older adults in economically constrain urban environments. Smoking and drinking may serve as coping mechanisms with financial difficulty, especially among African American older adults. In line with the minorities’ diminished returns (MDR) theory, and probably due to discrimination against racial minorities, educational attainment has a smaller protective effect among economically disadvantaged African American individuals against health risk behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Shervin Assari & James Smith & Ritesh Mistry & Mehdi Farokhnia & Mohsen Bazargan, 2019. "Substance Use among Economically Disadvantaged African American Older Adults; Objective and Subjective Socioeconomic Status," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-16, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:10:p:1826-:d:233629
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/10/1826/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/10/1826/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sachin J Shah & Harlan M Krumholz & Kimberly J Reid & Saif S Rathore & Aditya Mandawat & John A Spertus & Joseph S Ross, 2012. "Financial Stress and Outcomes after Acute Myocardial Infarction," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(10), pages 1-10, October.
    2. Ashleigh Guillaumier & Laura Twyman & Christine Paul & Mohammad Siahpush & Kerrin Palazzi & Billie Bonevski, 2017. "Financial Stress and Smoking within a Large Sample of Socially Disadvantaged Australians," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-9, February.
    3. Stillman, F.A. & Bone, L. & Avila-Tang, E. & Smith, K. & Yancey, N. & Street, C. & Owings, K., 2007. "Barriers to smoking cessation in inner-city African American young adults," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 97(8), pages 1405-1408.
    4. Pete Driezen & Abu S. Abdullah & Nigar Nargis & A. K. M. Ghulam Hussain & Geoffrey T. Fong & Mary E. Thompson & Anne C. K. Quah & Steve Xu, 2016. "Awareness of Tobacco-Related Health Harms among Vulnerable Populations in Bangladesh: Findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Bangladesh Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-15, August.
    5. Rodriguez, Javier M., 2018. "Health disparities, politics, and the maintenance of the status quo: A new theory of inequality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 36-43.
    6. Klesges, L.M. & Pahor, M. & Shorr, R.I. & Wan, J.Y. & Williamson, J.D. & Guralnik, J.M., 2001. "Financial difficulty in acquiring food among elderly disabled women: Results from the Women's Health and Aging Study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(1), pages 68-75.
    7. Shervin Assari & Ritesh Mistry, 2018. "Educational Attainment and Smoking Status in a National Sample of American Adults; Evidence for the Blacks’ Diminished Return," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-12, April.
    8. Catherine Ross & John Mirowsky, 1999. "Refining the association between education and health: The effects of quantity, credential, and selectivity," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(4), pages 445-460, November.
    9. Rodriguez, Javier M. & Geronimus, Arline T. & Bound, John & Dorling, Danny, 2015. "Black lives matter: Differential mortality and the racial composition of the U.S. electorate, 1970–2004," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 136, pages 193-199.
    10. Javier M. Rodriguez & Arline T. Geronimus & John Bound & Danny Dorling, 2015. "Black Lives Matter: Differential Mortality and the Racial Composition of the U.S. Electorate, 1970–2004," Mathematica Policy Research Reports a15cece510b4443cbc5526423, Mathematica Policy Research.
    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. Meghan C. Evans & Mohsen Bazargan & Sharon Cobb & Shervin Assari, 2019. "Pain Intensity among Community-Dwelling African American Older Adults in an Economically Disadvantaged Area of Los Angeles: Social, Behavioral, and Health Determinants," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-17, October.
    2. Rohit Sharma & Natália Martins & Arunabh Tripathi & Pasquale Caponnetto & Neha Garg & Eugenie Nepovimova & Kamil Kuča & Pradeep Kumar Prajapati, 2020. "Influence of Family Environment and Tobacco Addiction: A Short Report from a Post-Graduate Teaching Hospital, India," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-10, April.
    3. Aaron Broun & Lilianna Phan & Danielle A. Duarte & Aniruddh Ajith & Bambi Jewett & Erin L. Mead-Morse & Kelvin Choi & Julia Chen-Sankey, 2022. "Physical and Sociocultural Community-Level Influences on Cigar Smoking among Black Young Adults: An In-Depth Interview Investigation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-15, April.
    4. T. Wing Lo & Jerf W. K. Yeung & Cherry H. L. Tam, 2020. "Substance Abuse and Public Health: A Multilevel Perspective and Multiple Responses," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-7, April.

    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. Edward Adinkrah & Babak Najand & Arash Rahmani & Najmeh Maharlouei & Tavonia Ekwegh & Sharon Cobb & Hossein Zare, 2022. "Social Determinants of Mental, Physical, and Oral Health of Middle-Aged and Older African Americans in South Los Angeles," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Giacomo DiPasquale & Matthew Gomies & Javier M. Rodriguez, 2021. "Race and class patterns of income inequality during postrecession periods," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2812-2823, November.
    3. Hafifa Siddiq & Babak Najand, 2022. "Immigration Status, Socioeconomic Status, and Self-Rated Health in Europe," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-12, November.
    4. Ye, Wei & Rodriguez, Javier M., 2021. "Highly vulnerable communities and the Affordable Care Act: Health insurance coverage effects, 2010–2018," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    5. Mohsen Bazargan & James L. Smith & Paul Robinson & John Uyanne & Ruqayyah Abdulrahoof & Chika Chuku & Shervin Assari, 2019. "Chronic Respiratory Disease and Health-Related Quality of Life of African American Older Adults in an Economically Disadvantaged Area of Los Angeles," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-15, May.
    6. Shervin Assari & James L. Smith & Marc A. Zimmerman & Mohsen Bazargan, 2019. "Cigarette Smoking among Economically Disadvantaged African-American Older Adults in South Los Angeles: Gender Differences," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-16, April.
    7. Mershon, Carol, 2020. "What effect do local political elites have on infant and child death? Elected and chiefly authority in South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    8. Shervin Assari & Shanika Boyce & Mohsen Bazargan & Ron Mincy & Cleopatra H. Caldwell, 2019. "Unequal Protective Effects of Parental Educational Attainment on the Body Mass Index of Black and White Youth," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-14, September.
    9. Shervin Assari & Mohsen Bazargan, 2019. "Unequal Associations between Educational Attainment and Occupational Stress across Racial and Ethnic Groups," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-11, September.
    10. Kawachi, Ichiro & Subramanian, S.V., 2018. "Social epidemiology for the 21st century," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 240-245.
    11. Bilal, Usama & Knapp, Emily A. & Cooper, Richard S., 2018. "Swing voting in the 2016 presidential election in counties where midlife mortality has been rising in white non-Hispanic Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 33-38.
    12. Gollust, Sarah E. & Haselswerdt, Jake, 2023. "Who does COVID-19 hurt most? Perceptions of unequal impact and political implications," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).
    13. Roth, David L. & Skarupski, Kimberly A. & Crews, Deidra C. & Howard, Virginia J. & Locher, Julie L., 2016. "Distinct age and self-rated health crossover mortality effects for African Americans: Evidence from a national cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 12-20.
    14. Rodriguez, Javier M., 2018. "Health disparities, politics, and the maintenance of the status quo: A new theory of inequality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 36-43.
    15. Jensen, Robert & Lleras-Muney, Adriana, 2012. "Does staying in school (and not working) prevent teen smoking and drinking?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 644-657.
    16. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2009. "How large are returns to schooling? Hint: Money isn't everything," NBER Working Papers 15339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. repec:asg:wpaper:1048 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Bacalhau, Priscilla & Mattos, Enlinson & Ponczek, Vladimir Pinheiro, 2019. "College quality signaling and individual performance: effects on labor market outcomes after graduation," Textos para discussão 502, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    19. Hadii M. Mamudu & Fenose Osedeme & Crystal Robertson & Mary Ann Littleton & Daniel Owusu & Liang Wang & Donley T. Studlar, 2020. "A Qualitative Study to Explore Perception of Impacts of Preemption of Tobacco Regulation on Counties in Appalachian Tennessee," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-16, May.
    20. Leonardo Becchetti & Pierluigi Conzo & Fabio Pisani, 2018. "Education and health in Europe," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(12), pages 1362-1377, March.
    21. Vladimir M. Shkolnikov & Evgeny M. Andreev & Dmitri A. Jdanov & Domantas Jasilionis & Tapani Valkonen, 2009. "To what extent do rising mortality inequalities by education and marital status attenuate the general mortality decline? The case of Finland in 1971-2030," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2009-018, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.

    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:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:10:p:1826-:d:233629. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.