The Effect of Financial Strain on the Health Outcomes of Older Mexican-Origin Adults: Findings From the Hispanic Established Population for the Epidemiological Study of the Elderly (H-EPESE).

Predictors of health across the life-course do not maintain the same significance in very late life and the role of financial strain in health outcomes of very old adults remain unclear. Data from adults aged 74 + in waves 5 and 7 of the Hispanic Established Population for the Epidemiological Study of the Elderly (n = 772) study was used to evaluate the role of financial strain on the health of older Mexican Americans who have the highest poverty rate of any racial or ethnic group in the United States. We evaluate the association between episodic (one wave) and persistent financial strain (two waves), with follow-up health outcomes (self-rated health, ADL (limitations in activities of daily living)/IADL (limitations in instrumental activities of daily living) disability, and depressive symptoms). Adults with persistent strain were twice as likely to experience depressive symptoms and three times more likely to experience IADL limitations than the unstrained. Our findings highlight the role of stress proliferation and allostatic load processes leading to deteriorated health over time.

Associations among Financial Well-Being, Daily Relationship Tension, and Daily Affect in Two Adult Cohorts Separated by the Great Recession.

Financial well-being may be an important context for daily emotional reactivity to relationship tension (e.g., arguments) whose salience varies across historical time or as a function of exposure to economic downturns. This study investigated how emotional reactivity, operationalized as daily fluctuations in negative and positive affect associated with the occurrence of daily relationship tension, varied by financial well-being among those who were and were not exposed to the Great Recession of 2008. Two matched, independent subsamples of partnered individuals from the National Study of Daily Experiences completed identical 8-day diary protocols, one before the Great Recession (n = 587) and one after (n = 351). Individuals reported higher negative affect and lower positive affect on days when relationship tension occurred. Further, results indicated that negative affect reactivity, but not positive affect reactivity, was moderated by both financial well-being and cohort status. For the pre-recession cohort, negative affect reactivity was stronger among those with lower financial well-being. However, among the post-recession cohort, financial well-being did not moderate negative affect reactivity to relationship tension. Findings highlight the utility of considering major societal events, such as economic downturns, to understand variability in emotional reactivity to day-to-day relationship tension in the context of financial well-being, as the salience of financial well-being in the ways relationship tension and negative affect are related on a daily basis appears to vary by historical context.