African American Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: A National Profile of Demographic and Health Characteristics

Social workers are seeing, in health care settings, an increasing number of grandparent caregivers among their clients. A disproportionate number of these are African American. This article compares the demographic and physical and mental health characteristics of African American grandparents who are raising their grandchildren with non-caregiving African American grandparents, using the National Survey of Families and Households (1992-94). Caregivers reported significantly higher levels of limitations in four of five activities of daily living (ADL) and were almost twice as likely as their peers to report clinically relevant levels of depression.