David W. S. Wong

Frequent mental distress (FMD) is prevalent among older Americans, but less is known about disparities in FMD of older adults living in multigenerational families versus living alone. We pooled cross-sectional data (unweighted, n = 126,144) from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) between 2016 and 2020 and compared FMD (≥14 poor mental health days in the past 30 days = 1; 0 otherwise) of older adults (≥65 years) living in multigenerational families versus living alone in 36 states. After controlling for covariates, findings indicate 23% lower odds of FMD among older adults living in multigenerational households compared to counterparts living alone (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 0.77; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.60, 0.99). Findings also show that the reduction in the odds of FMD with each 5 year increase in age was larger among older adults living in multigenerational families by 18% (AOR: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.46, 0.70) compared to older adults living alone (AOR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.71, 0.77), and this difference was significant at the 5% significance level. Multigenerational living may have a protective association with FMD among older adults. Further research is needed to identify multigenerational family and non-kin factors that translate into mental health advantages for older adults.

A recent study shows that among the three age groups of youth, adult and older adult, youth‐older adult has the highest age segregation while youth‐adult has the lowest. Similar to many previous age segregation studies, racial‐ethnic differences, an important population axis in segregation studies, were not considered. Prior studies are also limited to using two‐group measures, failing to compare multiple groups together. We explore the complexity in measuring intersectional segregation focusing on the two axes of age and race‐ethnicity and propose a conditional approach to measure age segregation by racial‐ethnic groups, and racial‐ethnic segregation by age groups. Using this approach, we empirically study the 2010 age‐race‐ethnic segregation at the county and state levels in the United States, using census tracts as the basic units. Both the two and multigroup dissimilarity indices were used. Results show that the racial‐ethnic axis had been a stronger force in segregation than the age axis. Results also show disparities of racial‐ethnic segregation across age groups with the highest levels present among older adults and in urban counties. For all three age groups, segregation levels involving Natives and Asians tend to be higher than those without them. In contrast, age segregation was the highest between youths and older adults, and the levels varied across racial‐ethnic groups with Natives at the highest levels. Although age segregation was significantly different between urban and rural counties, higher segregation in urban areas were mostly involving Whites as opposed to higher segregation in rural counties involving minority racial groups. Studying age segregation should not be colour blinded, as nonwhite older adults in rural counties were more likely to experience higher levels of age segregation than other groups.