Research Interests

I am interested in the ways in which older people and their families cope with declines in health and functional capacity. This research focus parallels my interest in the contributions of women as unpaid providers of health care within the family. One strand of this research involves medical self-care, which includes the interpretation and treatment of symptoms and lay management of chronic disease. Self-care is the predominant form of primary care in the United States. Most people practice some form of lay diagnosis and treatment whether or not they also consult health care professionals. I am also interested in how people craft lay explanations of disease and how these lay understandings influence their responses to particular symptoms and their strategies for living with chronic disease. In addition to response to acute symptoms, my colleagues and I have explored self-care by individuals suffering from diabetes, heart disease, oral pathology, sleep loss, and Hepatitis C.

Another strand of my research describes and explains the configuration of older people's support networks, including both informal assistance and formal health-related services. I have written about the ways in which gender structures helping relationships between elderly parents and their adult children. A related interest is the process through which older people and their families integrate formal and informal sources of assistance. My current research is examining the role of ethnicity on informal helping networks and long term care preferences among retired sunbelt migrants.

An underlying theme of all of my research and teaching is the impact of systems of inequality, particularly those based on gender, race, and social class, on the experience of growing old. I encourage my students to think about gender, race, and class as social constructs, as classifications based on social values that influence identity formation, opportunity structures, and adaptive resources. We visualize these social constructs as interlocking hierarchies that create systems of privilege as well as disadvantage. This approach is incorporated into Worlds of Difference: Inequality and the Aging Experience, a textbook (co-authored with Rose Campbell Gibson) that explores the impact of gender, race, and social class on the life course experiences of elderly Americans. The third edition of Worlds of Difference was published in 2000.