Lifetime Trauma and Depression in Older Adults: Differences By Gender and Race

Background and Purpose: Despite research evidence on the negative relationship between traumatic experience and psychological well-being, relatively little research exists exploring this relationship according to gender and race among older adults. Guided by cumulative inequality theory, this study investigates how types of lifetime trauma and cumulative trauma experiences are associated with depression over time among older adults by gender and race.

Methods: Using the data from the Health and Retirement Study (2006/2010, N=5,261), lagged dependent variable models are performed among older adults aged 51 and older. Models are stratified by gender and race.

Results: The results highlight that the experience of family’s addiction and a serious physical attack/assault were associated with greater levels of depressive symptoms among women and the experience of natural disaster and physical attack/assault were associated with greater levels of depressive symptoms among men. Focusing on the cumulative trauma experiences, greater levels of lifetime trauma experiences were associated with greater levels of depressive symptoms among both men and women. Moreover, depression consequences in relation to the experience of each type of lifetime trauma vary by race. In models adjusted for covariates, the experience of a serious physical attack/assault was significantly associated with higher levels of depression among Blacks/African-Americans whereas both family addiction and a serious physical attack/assault were significantly associated with higher levels of depression among Whites/Caucasians. The cumulative trauma experiences were positively associated with depressive symptoms among Whites/Caucasians but not among Blacks/African-Americans.

Conclusions and Implications: These results provide evidence of intragroup heterogeneity in the lifetime trauma and clinical depression relationship that can help to develop more effective interventions for the psychological well-being of older adults. As physical attack/assault was identified as one of the commonly reported lifetime traumas across different gender and race, social workers and policymakers can focus on services and policies that reduce the experience of physical attack or assault to promote the psychological well-being of older adults. One of the implications can be that gun control regulation, or other laws that prevent massive physical attack can improve the mental well-being of older adults. Future research is required to explore other health consequences of traumatic life experiences considering the gender and racial diversity from a life course perspective.