Older people living in less advantaged neighborhoods become disabled roughly two years earlier than their counterparts in more affluent neighborhoods, according to a new study.

The findings shed new light on the role environment plays in the disabling process and also point to a tangible effect of structural racism on the lives of older Americans, the researchers say.

The researchers tracked a cohort of 754 nondisabled people living in south central Connecticut from 1998 to 2020. All participants were 70 or older at the start of the study. The researchers interviewed them every month about their ability to conduct four essential activities of daily living: bathing, dressing, walking, and transferring from a chair without assistance.

“We’ve followed this cohort of community-living, older persons since the late 1990s, trying to understand the factors that allow people to maintain their independence as they grow older,” says Thomas M. Gill, professor of geriatric medicine at Yale University and principal investigator of the new study in JAMA Internal Medicine.

“But until now, we’ve not paid as much attention to the environment in which an older person is living, more broadly,” Gill says. “For example, how does living in a disadvantaged neighborhood affect the disabling process?”

Gill and his team found that, on average, a 70-year-old person in a disadvantaged neighborhood maintained their independence for 12.3 more years. But a 70-year-old person in a more advantaged neighborhood remained independent for an average of 14.2 more years.

The researchers say there are many possible factors contributing to the disparity between advantaged and disadvantaged neighborhoods. They include access to quality medical care, availability of nutritious food, the condition of local sidewalks, access to public transportation, and stress related to neighborhood crime or violence in some places.

Read the full article about how neighborhoods affect older people's independence by Jim Shelton at Futurity.