The independent contributions to recovery from hip fracture of psychosocial factors including depression, personality, social connectedness, and self-rated health were studied in 219 women age 59 and older (mean age 78.5) who were community dwelling prior to fracture. Initial assessments were conducted shortly after surgery and follow up assessments 2, 6, and 12 months later. By 12 months, 15 patients had died and 15 had entered a nursing home. Substantial declines in physical functioning though not psychosocial status were observed. Only 21 per cent (compared to 81 per cent prefracture) reported walking independently; fewer than 30 per cent had regained reported prefracture levels of physical function. The proportion with elevated depression scores at 12 months was 20 per cent, down from 51 per cent following surgery; 64 per cent rated their

A set of older workers from the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina metropolitan area were followed from pre-retirement to 24 months post-retirement in order to explore stages in retirement and the impact of social psychological, social background, and gender factors on the retirement adjustment. First, we found general support for Atchley's model of retirement adjustment (1976). Second, the factors that influence retirement adjustment in the data analysis revealed that: 1) pre-retirement self-esteem and friend identity meanings, as well as pension eligibility, increased positive attitudes toward retirement at six months, 12 months, and 24 months post-retirement; 2) retirement planning and voluntary retirement increased positive attitudes toward retirement earlier, but not later, in the first two years of retirement; 3) poor health decreased positive attitudes toward retirement later rather than earlier in the first two years of retirement; and 4) there were only limited gender effects.

The RCMAR centers are building trust with the communities they serve, resulting in the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority older adults in clinical research studies and health promotion projects. Implications are discussed for other researchers toward building trust with ethnic minority elders to increase their participation in research.

More research is needed on the expectations and experiences of the grandparent role. In this study, we focused attention on self processes. The finding that grandparent identity meanings, grandparent centrality, and self-esteem influence grandparent role satisfaction suggests that self factors should be included in comprehensive investigations of grandparenthood. The next step is to explore the grandparent identity in more detail and investigate how it relates to other identities and to the well-being of older persons.

A set of older workers from the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan area were followed for two years in order to explore the social psychological consequences of retirement. Three findings are of particular interest. First, when we separated workers who retired from those who continued to work and compared their self-esteem and depression scores over the two-year interval, we found that self-esteem scores did not change for either group, but that depression scores declined for workers who retired. Turning to differences between retirees and those who continued to work, regression analyses revealed that retirement had a positive influence on self-esteem and a negative influence on depression. In addition, earlier worker identity meanings had a stronger negative effect on the depression scores of respondents who continued to work than on those who retired.