Abstract
The Framingham Disability Study (FDS), a recent component of the Heart Disease Epidemiological Study in Framingham, Massachusetts, was designed to investigate the nature and magnitude of disability among mon-institutionalized aging adults. From September 1976, through November 1978, 2,654 individuals aged 55 to 84 years from the original cohort were interviewed in person or by telephone (94 per cent of the potential participant pool). This paper reports results on the prevalence social disability in five areas: housekeeping, transportation, social interaction, food preparation, and grocery shopping. Only 6 per cent of the sample have existing unmet needs in one or more of these five areas. The magnitude of social disability increases with advancing age. Women, in general, report a higher degree of unmet social needs than men. These findings are compared with other epidemiological investigations of social disability among the elderly.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- DAWBER T. R., MEADORS G. F., MOORE F. E., Jr Epidemiological approaches to heart disease: the Framingham Study. Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1951 Mar;41(3):279–281. doi: 10.2105/ajph.41.3.279. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Jette A. M., Branch L. G. The Framingham Disability Study: II. Physical disability among the aging. Am J Public Health. 1981 Nov;71(11):1211–1216. doi: 10.2105/ajph.71.11.1211. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Oriol W. E. The Donald P. Kent Memorial Lecture: "modern" old age and public policy. Gerontologist. 1981 Feb;21(1):35–45. doi: 10.1093/geront/21.1.35. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Uhlenberg P. Changing structure of the older population of the USA during the twentieth century. Gerontologist. 1977 Jun;17(3):197–202. doi: 10.1093/geront/17.3.197. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]