Interactive Effects of Chronic Health Conditions And Financial Hardship On Episodic Memory Among Older Blacks: Findings From The Health And Retirement Study

Abstract

Previous research links chronic health conditions and financial hardship to cognitive outcomes among older Blacks. However, few studies have explored the moderating effect of financial hardship on chronic disease burden and specific cognitive domains. This study examined whether financial hardship (as measured by difficulty paying monthly bills) modifies the impact of self-reported chronic health conditions (e.g., diabetes, stroke) on episodic memory among 871 older Blacks (50+ years) in the 2006 Health and Retirement Study . Financial hardship modified the association between chronic disease burden and episodic memory performance such that individuals who reported very little difficulty paying their monthly bills had significantly lower memory scores at high levels of disease burden compared to those reporting high financial difficulty after controlling for age, gender and education (F 2, 49 = 5.03, p = .010). This cross-sectional study suggests that both financial and physical wellbeing may have joint effects on cognitive health in older Blacks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Michigan Center for Contextual Factors in Alzheimer’s Disease (MCCFAD) (P30AG059300); New York University’s Upstream Fund on Prevention to Gonzales is not registered in the Open Funder Registry; National Institutes on Aging (5K01AG04358105, 5K01AG048416) to DLBM and GLM; National Institutes of Health (R01AG054363, P30AG059298, U54MD000214, R01AG054520, and R00AG047963) to RJT, KEW, and LBZ.