Examining Older Adults’ Home Functioning Using the American Housing Survey

Mi Jung Lee, Daejin Kim, Sergio Romero, Ickpyo Hong, Nikolay Bliznyuk and Craig Velozo
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Mi Jung Lee: Department of Nutrition, Metabolism & Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, TX 77555, USA
Daejin Kim: Department of Interior Design, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
Sergio Romero: Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA
Ickpyo Hong: Department of Occupational Therapy, Yonsei University, Wonju 26493, Korea
Nikolay Bliznyuk: Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Craig Velozo: Division of Occupational Therapy, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 8, 1-13

Abstract: Identifying individuals at risk of experiencing functional difficulty at home would support timely home safety assessment and modification services, which could lead to reducing home incidents such as falls. The objective of this study was to calculate older adults’ functional difficulty at home scores using the 12 physical function items in the American Housing Survey National and Metropolitan Data (AHS). Among the 28,474 older adults selected for this study, we used 19,932 for measurement model development and 8542 for model testing. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed an adequate fit of the one-dimensional model with all AHS 12 items loading on one latent construct (functional difficulty at home) (RMSEA: 0.034, CFI: 0.990, and TLI: 0.988). Based on our model selection process, we determined that the Graded Response Model was an optimal model for our analysis and separated two detected differential functioning items for each sex. Using the testing dataset, we validated that the estimated functional difficulty scores showed an expected item hierarchy and statistically significant differences in their association with housing and demographic conditions ( p < 0.001). Our results demonstrated the process of using the 12 AHS physical function at home items to produce validated scores of older adults’ functional difficulty at home.

Keywords: aging in place; American housing survey; functional independence; home safety; older adults (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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