Falls and associated risks in community-dwelling Hispanic older adults enrolled in the PARI-HD study

Falls are the leading cause of injury among older adults, but few studies have focused on falls in Hispanic older adults outside of the U.S. Here we used linear and multinomial regression to assess the association between falls and a wide range of known risk factors, including cognitive impairment, depression, frailty and inflammatory biomarkers in older adults enrolled in the PARI-HD study. This analysis included 468 participants ≥60 years of age (M = 69.9, SD=6.8). 26.1 % (CI_95% 22.0-30.3 %) of participants reported at least one fall in the preceding 12 months; 14.5 % (CI_95% 11.5-18.1 %) reported a single fall and 11.5 % (CI_95% 8.8-14.8 %) reported multiple falls. Depressive symptoms and elevated inflammatory biomarkers were positively associated with number of falls, female sex and elevated IL-6 were associated with single falls, and increasing depressive symptoms were positively associated with recurrent falls. Our results may help to guide prevention programs focused on reducing fall risks.