BACKGROUND. Ethnic differences in breast cancer screening behaviors are well established. However, there is a lack of understanding regarding exactly what causes these differences and which characteristics in low-screening populations should be targeted in an effort to modify screening behavior. METHODS.Stratified cluster sampling was used to recruit 1364 women (ages 50 -70 years) from 6 ethnic groups: African-American women; U.S.-born white women;English-speaking Caribbean, Haitian, and Dominican women; and immigrant Eastern-European women. In interviews, respondents provided information concerning demographic and structural variables related to mammogram utilization (age, education, income, marital status, physician recommendation, access, and insurance) and a set of cognitive variables (fatalism, perception of personal risk, health beliefs concerning cancer) and socioemotional variables (stress, cancer worry, embarrassment, and pain). RESULTS.For data analysis, the authors used a 2-step logistic regression with frequency of mammograms over a 10-year period (Յ 4 mammograms over 10 years or Ն 5 mammograms over 10 years) as a dependent variable. U.S.-born AfricanAmerican women and Dominican women were screened as frequently as European-American women, but the remaining minority groups were screened with less frequency. With one exception, ethnicity ceased to predict screening frequency once cognitive and emotional variables were controlled. CONCLUSIONS.Although women from clearly operationalized ethnic groups continue to screen at rates substantially below those of the majority groups, these differences appear to be explained substantially by differences in psychologic variables. This is encouraging because, rather than targeting culture for interven- B reast cancer is the second most common malignancy in women. 1 Although there has been some recent controversy, 2 a number of studies and reviews have shown that mammography reduces mortality, 3,4 and several authors have argued that early detection and screening represent our best means for decreasing breast cancer mortality. [5][6][7] Across the last 2 decades, a large body of descriptive research has documented the background factors that are believed to act barriers to, and facilitators of, mammography. In general, greater age, 8 -13 lower income and education, 14 -16 single marital status, 10 the absence of insurance, 17 and lack of physician recommendation 6,18 -20 all were reported to be predictive of poorer mammography utilization. Minority women also are less likely to have regular mammograms, a finding that is attributed commonly to lower education and income. What is of interest, however, is that ethnic differences in screening behavior persist even when variables such as socioeconomic status or education do not differ or are controlled statistically. 7,21,22 A growing number of screening studies also have examined an array of cognitive, attitudinal, and emotional factors that act as barriers to regular screening: patient perceptions of vulnerability,...

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African Americans are disproportionately represented in the number of grandparents raising their grandchildren. Using Role Strain Theory and Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, this study examines how older grandmothers fare relative to their younger counterparts. Eighty-five custodial African American grandmothers, aged 33-88 years old, completed demographic questionnaires and scales of Role Demand, Emotional Strain, Caregiving Strain Index, and Level of Care. Results showed older grandmothers experienced less emotional and caregiving strain relative to younger grandmothers. Furthermore, married grandmothers experienced less caregiving strain, and their age did not insulate them from the strain associated with the level of care. Implications are discussed.

It is an axiom of social gerontology that populations of older individuals become increasingly differentiated as they age. Adaptations to physical and social losses and the increased dependency that typically accompany greater age are likely to be similarly heterogeneous, with different individuals adjusting to the aging process in widely diverse ways. In this paper we consider how individuals with diverse emotional and regulatory profiles, different levels of religiosity, and varied patterns of social relatedness fare as they age. Specifically, we examine the relation between ethnicity and patterns of socioemotional adaptation in a large, ethnically diverse sample (N = 1118) of community-dwelling older adults. Cluster analysis was applied to 11 measures of socioemotional functioning. Ten qualitatively different profiles were extracted and then related to a measure of physical resiliency. Consistent with ethnographic and psychological theory, individuals from different ethnic backgrounds were unevenly distributed across the clusters. Resilient participants of African descent (African Americans, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Barbadians) were more likely to manifest patterns of adaptation characterized by religious beliefs, while resilient US-born Whites and Immigrant Whites were more likely to be resilient as a result of non-religious social connectedness. Taken together, although these data underscore the diversity of adaptation to later life, we suggest that patterns of successful adaptation vary systematically across ethnic groups. Implications for the continued study of ethnicity in aging and directions for future research are given.

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