BLACK WHITE DIFFERENCES IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MMSE SCORES AND DISABILITY - THE WOMENS HEALTH AND AGING STUDY/

The purpose of this article is to examine Black/White differences amon g older women in the relationship between physical functional difficul ties and variations in cognitive status, measured,within the low to hi gh normal range of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). We studie d 3,585 women with MMSE scores of 18 and above from a population-based random sample of 3,841 community-dwelling women aged 65 and older liv ing in East Baltimore, Maryland. Trained interviewers administered the MMSE and obtained information on demographics, medical conditions, an d functional difficulties. Prevalence of any functional difficulty was 43.3% in Whites and 48.5% in Blacks, who were 25% of the study sample . After adjusting for age and education, a significant trend for incre asing functional difficulty with decreasing MMSE scores was found in W hite women but not in Black women. Since no explanation for these raci al differences could be identified, these findings suggest that the MM SE may not be a valid predictor of functional difficulty in Black wome n who score greater than or equal to 18 on the instrument.