Disabilities in older African-American women: understanding the current state of the literature.

The purpose of this review sought to address the following question: What does the current literature report regarding older African-American women with disabilities? A search of PubMed database was done for research on African-American women, ages 45 years and older, who have a disability. Sixty-one articles were reviewed and categorized into groups according to themes. The term disability was only defined in one of the studies. Overall, the studies reviewed revealed racial and ethnic disparities among African-American women with disabilities that included increased hospital days, poor health days, hospitalizations, being functionally totally dependent, and having increased primary and repeat amputations when compared to their White counterparts.