Hispanic women who identify as Black or another race have worse functional health than their counterparts who identify as White, according to new research. This research is part of a new special issue of Research on Aging (ROA, a journal from SAGE Publishing) focused on aging and health among Hispanic populations in the United States and in Latin America.
Looking at data from 42,908 U.S. Hispanic women, ages 18-85, from 1997 to 2011, Chinn and Hummer examined the relationship between race and certain functional limitations related to the body -- inabilities or difficulties in performing daily activities such as bending or kneeling, walking a quarter mile, grasping objects, etc. The researchers found that:
Chinn and Hummer continued, "Racial identity--or at least the distinction between identifying as Black or White--may have particular salience for the health of Hispanic adults among the second and higher generations. One strong possibility for this is that U.S.-born Black Hispanics simply have greater exposure to the harsh reality of being Black in American society than foreign-born Black Hispanics."
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