Purpose: Of all Canadian and American men who live to age 75 years, about half can expect to live to age 85. Our objective is to examine how clinical diagnoses made before age 75 relate to a man's survival to age 85 years. Design and Methods: Since 1948, a cohort of 3,983 young men (mean age of 31 years at entry) has been followed with routine…

Purpose: Educational attainment is a robust predictor of disability in elderly Americans: older adults with high-school (HS) diplomas have substantially lower disability than individuals who did not complete HS. General Educational Development (GED) diplomas now comprise almost 20% of new HS credentials issued annually in the United States but it…

During the 50 years in which "The Gerontologist" has been publishing, the politics of aging in the United States has undergone distinct changes. The political behavior of older individuals has remained largely the same even though different birth cohorts have succeeded each other in populating the ranks of older people. But the politics…

Purpose: Theories of the policy process recognize that policy proposals are typically generated, debated, redrafted, and accepted for consideration through the gradual accumulation of knowledge within communities of specialists. Thus, to inform long-term care (LTC) reform efforts, we conducted a Web-based survey of 1,147 LTC specialists…

Purpose: Public attention directed toward the civic engagement of retired Americans has increased considerably. The purpose of this research was to define civic engagement as a retirement role and differentiate individuals who met this role definition from other retirees. Design and Methods: Retirees who met our definition of civic engagement were…

Purpose: We explored Bandura's self-efficacy theory as applied to older adult (aged 63-92) participation in physical and social activity in a cross-cultural study. Design and Methods: Older adults in Spain (n = 53) and the United States (n = 55) completed questions regarding self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, and participation in physical and…

Purpose: The present study attempts to determine whether utilizing community-based long-term-care services early in the dementia caregiving career delays time to nursing home placement (adjusting for severity of dementia). Design and Methods: With a reliance on data from 4,761 dementia caregivers recruited from eight catchment areas in the United…

This study investigated the availability of printed human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) education/prevention materials from state departments of public health within the United States, which specifically targeted the older adult population. Information on HIV/AIDS from public health departments in each of…

Conducted a three-generation study of women's attitudes toward gender-appropriate roles and filial responsibility. United States gender-role attitudes were more egalitarian than those of the Japanese. In both countries, all three generations agreed that care of the elderly is a family responsibility, but attitudes toward filial responsibility were…

Examined intergenerational relationships and roles of older Salvadoran late-life immigrants to the United States. Found many similarities between these parents' roles in El Salvador and in United States, but fewer were employed and more had assumed childcare responsibilities. Children had strong sense of filial obligation; parents asked for little…

This article considers developments and directions for environmental gerontology drawing on the three papers in this Forum. The multidisciplinary field came of age during the 1960s with Powell Lawton's powerful environmental press paradigm and its applications to empirical research and building design. Recent theoretical developments in Europe and…

Purpose: The study of patterns of residential mobility among individuals around the age of retirement has led to the recognition that for many reasons--climate and cost of living being the most frequently cited--settlement patterns of comparatively affluent retirees will often differ from those of the working-age population. Increasingly,…

Purpose: Family caregivers comprise the backbone of long-term-care provision in the United States, yet little is known about how the composition and experience of family caregiving has changed over time. Design and Methods: Data are drawn from the 1989 and 1999 National Long-Term Care Survey and Informal Caregiver Survey to develop nationally…

Studied American images of Japanese aging in Americans (N=40) living temporarily in Japan and Americans (N=120) living in Chicago and Honolulu. Results suggest that Americans idealize Japanese old age; that this idealization reflects Americans' ambivalence about dependence across the life cycle; and that this idealization is not limited to laymen.…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to estimate the effect of obesity on both the length of life and length of nondisabled life for older Americans. Design and Methods: Using data from the first 3 waves of the Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) survey, this article develops estimates of total, active, and disabled life…