Many racial groups extend care to their relatives but experts say informal adoption is unquestionably a common practice in the African American community.
A new special issue of the journal
Innovation in Aging, titled Race and Mental Health Among Older Adults: Within- and Between-Group Comparisons, is expressly devoted to much-needed research on aging and mental health within racial and ethnic minority populations (e.g., African Americans, Latinx, and Asian Americans, as well as subgroups within these larger pan-ethnic categories). The lack of quality research on mental health for older members of racial and ethnic population groups has been a serious impediment to amassing a solid understanding of aging processes and contextual factors that are consequential for mental well-being in later life, wrote Robert Joseph Taylor, PhD, MSW, who served as the guest editor for this special issue. This gap in the literature on aging is long-standing and particularly problematic given projected increases in the numbers of older adults from racial and ethnic minority population groups.