The health benefits of network growth: new evidence from a national survey of older adults.
The health benefits of network growth: new evidence from a national survey of older adults.
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DOI：
10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.09.011
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发表时间：
2015-01
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Laumann, Edward O.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cornwell, Benjamin;Laumann, Edward O.
研究社交网络如何影响老年人健康的学者常常担心晚年社交联系可能会下降。本文将重点转向老年人培养新社会关系的倾向。这种网络增长的过程可以改善获得社会资源的机会，增强自尊，减少孤独感，并增加身体活动。因此，我们利用国家社会生活、健康和老龄化项目（NSHAP）的新纵向数据来研究关系培养和健康之间的联系，该项目记录了大约五年内老年人知己网络名册的变化。大多数受访者（81.8%）在研究期间至少添加了一名新的网络成员，并且大多数（59.4%）培养了多个新的知己关系。纵向分析表明，新知己的加入与功能、自我评价和心理健康的改善相关，扣除基线连通性以及同一时期发生的任何网络损失。网络丢失与身体健康有关，但与心理健康无关。这些发现强调了区分晚年社交网络变化的并发过程的重要性，并强调需要对网络变化可能改善健康的机制进行更多研究。
Scholars who study how social networks affect older adults’ health are often concerned with the prospect of declining social connectedness in late life. This paper shifts the focus to older adults’ tendencies to cultivate new social ties. This process of network growth can improve access to social resources, boost self-esteem, reduce loneliness, and increase physical activity. We therefore examine the link between tie cultivation and health using new longitudinal data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), which recorded changes in older adults’ confidant network rosters over a period of about five years. Most respondents (81.8%) added at least one new network member during the study period, and most (59.4%) cultivated multiple new confidant relationships. Longitudinal analyses suggest that the addition of new confidants is associated with improvements in functional, self-rated, and psychological health, net of baseline connectedness as well as any network losses that occurred during the same period. Network losses were associated with physical but not psychological well-being. These findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between concurrent processes that underlie social network change in later life, and highlight the need for additional research on the mechanisms by which network change may improve health.
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