Papers of the Week

Previous literature has rarely examined the role of pain in the process of disablement. We investigate how pain associates with disability transitions among older adults, using educational attainment as a moderator. Data are from the National Health and Aging Trends Study, N=6,357; 33,201 one-year transitions between 2010-2020. We estimate multinomial logistic models predicting incidence or onset of and recovery from functional limitation and disability. Results show pain significantly predicts functional limitation and disability onset one year after a baseline observation, and decreases odds of recovery from functional limitation or disability. Contrary to expectations, higher education does not buffer the association of pain in onset of disability, but supporting expectations, it facilitates recovery from functional limitation or disability among those with pain. The analysis implicates pain as having a key role in the disablement process and suggests that education may moderate this with respect to coping with and subsequently recovering from disability.