==== Front
Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1300
igaa057.1300
Abstracts
Session 2954 (Poster)
Health Behaviors
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Problem Drinking Predicts Functional Health and Mortality Risk 10 Years Later in the MIDUS Study
Miller Sara  Almeida David  Maggs Jennifer  
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”404 404
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
The current study examined whether problem drinking in older adulthood is associated with greater longitudinal risk of functional impairment and mortality through 2016. Problem drinking consists of patterns of alcohol use resulting in symptoms of alcohol dependence or health and social consequences. Participants were adults (n=2654, 56.1% female) from Wave 2 (mean age=55, range=30-84) and Wave 3 (mean age=64, range=39-93) of the Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) Study. Participants reported problem drinking behaviors (e.g., alcohol related role interference) and any disability in basic and instrumental activities of daily living (ADL, iADL). Mortality data was acquired from the 2016 MIDUS Mortality dataset. Results indicated that 20.7% of the sample reported at least one problem drinking behavior in the past year. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that the sum of problematic drinking behaviors at Wave 2 predicted 10-year longitudinal change in impairments in ADL’s (b=0.05, p<0.01) and iADL’s (b=0.05, p<0.01) after controlling for age, education, gender, and previous ADL/iADL. Logistic regression results revealed that for every additional alcohol use problem reported at MIDUS 2, the odds of mortality increased by 1.74 (b=0.55, p<0.01), beyond controls for age and number of chronic conditions. The findings that problem drinking has a unique positive association with impaired functioning and mortality risk during older adulthood supports public health efforts to encourage reduced consumption, increased medical screening, and expanded treatment options.