Planning Ahead or Living a Day at a Time? A Family History of AD and Retirement Planning.

BACKGROUND: We assess whether a family history of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with the odds that healthy family members' engage in retirement planning activities. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study utilizing individual-level data from the Utah Population Database that have been linked to Medicare records and to responses from a retirement planning survey. Engagement in 3 retirement planning activities was estimated as a function of the number of parents and grandparents diagnosed with AD along with a set of fundamental socioeconomic and demographic covariates. RESULTS: Adults who had a parent with AD were 86% more likely to have seen a professional financial advisor and 40% less likely to plan to retire before age 65. CONCLUSIONS: Caregiving costs and/or knowledge of the familial risk of developing AD may provide adult children with a forewarning of their own future financial needs that, in turn, motivates them to engage in retirement planning.

Family Health Histories and Their Impact on Retirement Confidence.

OBJECTIVE: Retirement confidence is a key social barometer. In this article, we examine how personal and parental health histories relate to working-age adults' feelings of optimism or pessimism about their overall retirement prospects. METHOD: This study links survey data on retirement planning with information on respondents' own health histories and those of their parents. The multivariate models control for the respondents' socio-demographic and economic characteristics along with past retirement planning activities when estimating the relationships between family health histories and retirement confidence. RESULTS: Retirement confidence is inversely related to parental history of cancer and cardiovascular disease but not to personal health history. In contrast, retirement confidence is positively associated with both parents being deceased. DISCUSSION: As members of the public become increasingly aware of how genetics and other family factors affect intergenerational transmission of chronic diseases, it is likely that the link between family health histories and retirement confidence will intensify.

Putting it off: family breast cancer history and women's retirement planning.

OBJECTIVE: Cancer diagnoses have significant consequences that extend beyond the individual to family members. Our research builds on prior research by examining how a family history of breast cancer is related to women's retirement preparations. METHODS: Taking guidance from the stress process model, we generate and test hypotheses using multivariate logistic regression and unique data on retirement planning and familial cancer histories for 467 women. We supplement this analysis with the qualitative findings from two focus groups. RESULTS: We find consistent evidence that women with a mother and/or sister who had a breast cancer diagnosis are significantly less likely to engage in retirement preparation activities than otherwise similar women with no family history. The same effect is not observed when other first-degree relatives have different cancer diagnoses. The face validity of these quantitative findings is confirmed by the focus group analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Our research suggests that the stressors experienced by close female relatives of women who have had breast cancer may lead to behaviors and attitudes that have consequences for their post-retirement quality of life.

Family, frailty, and fatal futures? Own-health and family-health predictors of subjective life expectancy.

Subjective life expectancy is a powerful predictor of a variety of health and economic behaviors. This research expands upon the life expectancy literature by examining the influence of familial health histories. Using a genetic/environmental model, we hypothesize that individuals' assessments of their life expectancies will be linked to the health of first-degree and second-degree relatives, with same-sex relatives' health exercising a stronger effect than that of opposite-sex relatives. Multivariate analyses based on data from a 2009 survey merged with familial health records (N = 1,019) confirm that the health experiences of same-sex, first-degree relatives are linked to respondents' subjective life expectancy. The relationship between the health experiences of second-degree relatives and subjective life expectancy is much less pronounced. These findings have the potential not only to inform our understanding of health behaviors but also to encourage communication between patients and health professionals aimed at promoting preventative behaviors.

Voluntary disclosure of BRCA1 mutation test results.

This study assessed the probability that individuals tested for a BRCA1 gene mutation share their test results with family members, co-workers, and insurers. Members of a large kindred known to be at-risk for carrying a BRCA1 gene mutation were tested and they learned their results from a genetic counselor. During a follow-up interview, 4 months later, subjects were asked with whom they had shared their results. Respondents were most likely to have communicated results to family members, followed by co-workers, and insurers. Carrier status affected their willingness to disclose results to insurers. High rates of disclosure to family members should promote awareness of hereditary cancer risk. Selective disclosure to co-workers and insurers may promote information asymmetries that could affect employment and insurance markets.