Functional Health Disparities among Older Adults in India: Intersectionality of Gender, Education and Geographic Region.

Research on social determinants of health in India has focused largely on the independent influence of education, gender and region. This study advances knowledge on this topic by using an intersectionality framework to examine the combined effects of these three key social locators on the critical, as yet underexamined outcome of functional health of older adults. We use data from Wave 1 (2007-2010) of the Study of Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) (N=7,150) to examine whether the effects of education on functional limitations differ by gender in six highly heterogenous regions of the country. Overall, the effects of education on functional limitations were substantially greater for men than women. Consistent with well-documented regional differences in economic development, cultural norms and practices, and political context, this relationship varied across locales. Our findings highlight the need to move beyond independent sources of heterogeneity in examining late life functional health in the global south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]