Abstract
Although many older adults fear loss of autonomy in late life, relatively few make plans for their future care. Given the benefits of future care planning (FCP), it is important to understand factors that facilitate or hamper FCP in late life. Our study explored racial and dispositional influences on thinking about and engagement in FCP among 409 community dwelling older adults in Cleveland, OH (Mean age=78.47; SD=5.88). Logistic regression estimates suggest that racial and dispositional characteristics not only play a role in who thinks about FCP, but also who executes FCP. In terms of executing FCP, blacks had significantly lower odds of FCP (β=0.36, p<.05) when compared to whites. However, after the inclusion of education, disability status, optimism, and religiosity, the estimate for blacks becomes statistically insignificant suggesting the potential role of these variables in producing racial differences in FCP. We also found significantly higher odds of thinking and executing FCP among older adults who had at least high school education. In contrast, we observed significantly lower odds of thinking about FCP among married older adults. Moreover, our estimates indicate that an increase in the level of optimism leads to a decrease in the odds of FCP with similar results for religiosity and pessimism. Although certain demographic and dispositional characteristics may be considered as resources in later life (optimism, marriage, religiosity), our findings highlight that these resources may serve as barriers to FCP for black and white community dwelling older adults.