Examination of the association of age, disability, and mood among Jewish older adults in Israel

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between chronological age, disability and mental health in later life. Secondary analysis of data from a national probability sample of Jewish persons age 60 and over in Israel (n = 2079) was employed. Mental health, measured on a 12-item mood scale, was successively regressed on age, sociodemographic characteristics, functional disability and physical health status, and on the interaction of age and disability. A significant negative association between age and mood emerged when confounding variables were not controlled (β = -0.19). This association remained, to a lesser degree, after sociodemographic variables were entered (β = -0.11). The addition of disability and health variables reversed the direction of the association (β = 0.05). Finally, the entry of the interaction term (age x disability) bolstered the net association of age and mood (β (0 = 0.27). The analysis underscored the interaction of age and disability as a major threat to mental health in current aging cohorts.