Grandparent caregiving and epigenetic aging among midlife and older adults in the United States

Aarti C Bhat, Kaitlin M Trexberg, Abner T Apsley, David M Almeida and Idan Shalev

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2026, vol. 81, issue 2, gbaf255.

Abstract: ObjectivesGrandparents have increasingly taken more active caregiving roles for grandchildren. Given their vulnerability to aging-associated health declines, it is essential to understand how grandparent caregiving, along with grandparent gender and family relationships, may influence aging processes. This study examined how grandparent caregiving status interacts with gender and family affectual solidarity (FAS) to affect epigenetic aging, an indicator of healthspan and mortality risk.MethodsOur sample included grandparents participating in the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study (N = 492; mean age = 61.94; female = 59.96%), 18.29% of whom reported being grandparent caregivers for 6+ months. Epigenetic age was measured using the Horvath, Hannum, PhenoAge, GrimAge, and DunedinPACE epigenetic clocks. We tested for moderation by gender and FAS, the degree of positive (and negative) sentiment between family members.ResultsLinear regression found, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and BMI, associations between grandparent caregiving and DunedinPACE, indicating that more time spent caring for grandchildren is related to a faster pace of aging. Two-way interactions between grandparent caregiving and gender showed epigenetic age acceleration (higher biological age compared to chronological age) for grandfather caregivers versus non-caregiving grandfathers across multiple clocks. Three-way interactions between grandparent caregiving, gender, and FAS indicated that caregiving grandfathers experience epigenetic age deceleration with higher FAS compared to caregiving grandmothers. Similarly, caregiving grandfathers experience epigenetic age deceleration with higher partner affectual solidarity compared to caregiving grandmothers.DiscussionThese results have implications for targeted interventions to benefit the healthy aging of grandparent caregivers.

Keywords: Intergenerational relationships; Epigenetic age acceleration; Social determinants of health; Family systems; Gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbaf255 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:geronb:v:81:y:2026:i:2:p:gbaf255.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

More articles in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B from The Gerontological Society of America Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().