THE EFFECTS OF RACE AND GENDER ON PREDICTING IN-HOME AND COMMUNITY-BASED SERVICE USE BY OLDER ADULTS

The purpose of this study was to re-examine racial and gender differences in home and community-based services utilization. Using the 1999 National Long Term Care Survey, the Anderson-Newman (1995) health behavioral model, social supports and structural factors were used to examine predictors of service use among four in-home and two community-based services. The results showed that race did not have a significant main effect on service use, but gender had a significant main effect for housework, home delivered meals, and congregate meals. Using an interaction term, older white women reported higher usage of housework. Among the predictors, enabling factors had the strongest effect on the use of personal care/nursing, home delivered meals, transportation and senior centers’ services. The results also indicated the importance of social supports and structural factors, particularly service awareness, in predicting service use. Implications for policies and practice to improve community outreach, access and utilization of services by different racial groups of elders are discussed.