Functional Disability among the Puerto Rican Elderly

Abstract

This article reports data on the functional status of elderly Puerto Ricans derived from a recent large-scale household survey of this group in the New York metropolitan area. A comparison of our findings on Puerto Ricans to national data on Black and White elderly reveals that Puerto Ricans are significantly more disabled than either Blacks or Whites. When the demographic factors and the English language disadvantage that distinguish Puerto Ricans from both Blacks and Whites are taken into account, our estimate of the effect of race/ethnicity on disability is reduced (from eta = .29, p < .001 to beta = .16, p < .001), but a considerable effect remains. The data suggest that older Puerto Ricans are at high risk for dependency, and that within this population, persons whose lack of English severely limits their capacity to interact with the environment are at particular risk.