Study: Disabilities fell overall across decade, but cognitive issues persisted in Black Americans

While certain disabilities declined in the decade from 2008 to 2017 among older adults, Black people experienced more cognitive problems at the beginning and end of the decade, a new study shows.

In Black and white Americans over the age of 65, the prevalence of three different types of disabilities dropped during that decade, according to a report published Tuesday in International Journal of Aging and Human Development. Data included 423,000 older non-Hispanic Blacks and whites in 2008 (8% were Black) and 537,000 older adults in 2017 (of whom 9% were Black).

Over the course of the study, the prevalence of serious cognitive impairment declined from 17.1% to 13.2% among Black older Americans and from 11.3% to 9.2% among white older Americans. But in the years 2008 and 2017, older Black Americans had a higher rate of these disabilities: cognitive problems, limitations in functioning like getting dressed and limitations in activities of daily living like walking. 

The researchers correlated the findings with socioeconomic disadvantages such as lower education and lower income, which explained about half of the racial disparities that researchers saw in those two years. After adjusting for age, sex, income and education, Black older Americans were still approximately 40% more likely than white people the same age to have both types of limitations during those two years.

“This is unsurprising as previous research suggests that higher educational attainment protects against cognitive problems and physical disabilities in later life, and Black Americans experience unequal access to quality education,” Bolade Ajarat Shipeolu, a resident physician in psychiatry at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and one of the authors, said. “This finding supports continued efforts to improve education access and outcomes for Black Americans.”

Compared to whites, there was a larger decline in the prevalence of serious later-life cognitive impairments among Black Americans during the decade — a substantial narrowing of racial disparities.