Published In

PLoS ONE

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-8-2021

Subjects

Health promotion, Social service -- United States, Older Chinese Americans -- United States -- Self-rating of, Korean Americans -- United States -- Self-rating of, Depression in old age

Abstract

In the present study, we examined self-rated health as a mediator between physical health conditions (chronic diseases and functional disability) and depressive symptoms in older Chinese and Korean Americans. Using harmonized data (N = 5,063) from the Population Study of Chinese Elderly (PINE) and the Study of Older Korean Americans (SOKA), we tested direct and indirect effect models. In both groups, chronic diseases and functional disability were closely associated with negative ratings of health and symptoms of depression. Analyses with the PROCESS macro showed that the effect of chronic diseases and functional disability on depressive symptoms was mediated by self-rated health in both groups; the indirect effect was greater in the Korean American sample than in the Chinese American sample. These findings contribute to the understanding of the psychological mechanisms that underlie the mind–body connection and highlight the potential importance of subjective health assessment as a useful tool for health promotion.

Rights

© 2021 Jang et al.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Description

The data underlying the results presented in the study are available from the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (contact person: Stephanie Bergren, sbergren@ifh.rutgers.edu) under the Rutgers IRB's data sharing restriction policy on sensitive identifying information.

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0245136

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/34899

Included in

Social Work Commons

Share

COinS