Do characteristics associated with nursing home residents vary by race/ethnicity?

This study identifies differences in the predisposing, enabling, and need characteristics of racial/ethnic minorities and non-Hispanic white men and women upon nursing home admission. The data come from the 1999 National Nursing Home Survey of Current Residents and contain 3,798 women of color, 3,787 men of color, 18,719 non-Hispanic white men, and 36,900 non-Hispanic white women. We estimated prevalence differences and 95% confidence intervals for the absolute differences in prevalence. Women of color in nursing homes are more likely than non-Hispanic white women in nursing homes to be bedfast and require assistance with dressing and money management. Men of color in nursing homes are more likely than non-Hispanic white men in nursing homes to require assistance with eating, care of possessions, managing money, securing personal items, and using the telephone. The overall finding suggests that people of color in nursing homes have greater impairments than non-Hispanic whites in nursing homes, and that men of color in nursing homes have greater impairment than any other race or gender categories.