Social Relations, Aging and Health: Competing Theories and Emerging Complexities

描述（由申请人提供）：竞争理论和新出现的复杂性社会关系被广泛认为会影响健康和影响健康差距。尽管有理论上的进步和方法上的创新，我们仍然不知道：1）社会关系和支持如何随着年龄的变化而变化，或者2）什么时候社会关系对健康最有益或最有害。拟议的研究通过扩展社会关系，年龄和健康研究（SRS）来研究20年来的三波数据，并通过使用每月评估和多个线人调查一年内社会关系的详细变化来解决这些问题。具体来说，我们建议：1）分析20年来的3波纵向数据，以检验有关年龄、社会关系和健康的竞争理论。SRS的第三波将提供独特的机会，以指定随着时间的推移社会关系的结构和质量变化的方向和形状。 2)深入研究 支持交流和社会传染与多个线人在一年每月纵向网络研究。我们将测试三种假设的社会传染机制的相对强度：诱导，同性恋和共享环境。 3)检查是否20年的纵向模式的社会关系预测短期变化，制定了一年以上的支持，并确定长期模式的支持类型，预测短期的健康轨迹。这些独特的数据将允许一个无与伦比的检查竞争交换理论，例如利他主义，发展股份，支持银行，以及它们与健康创新的关联。我们提出了理论（竞争理论的测试）和方法（20年的纵向数据，多角度网络数据，基于网络的后续）创新，以澄清最近关于健康和社会关系的复杂和矛盾的发现。影响调查结果将影响社会关系和健康之间的联系，以及旨在改善健康和减少健康差距的公共政策为重点的计划奖学金。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Competing Theories and Emerging Complexities Social relations are widely recognized to influence health and to impact health disparities. Despite theoretical advancements and methodological innovations, we still do not know: 1) how social relationships and support change with age or 2) when social relationships are most beneficial or harmful to health. The proposed research addresses these issues by extending the Social Relations, Age and Health Study (SRS) to examine three waves of data over 20 years and by investigating detailed changes in social relations over one year using both monthly assessments and multiple informants. Specifically, we propose to: 1) Analyze 3 wave longitudinal data over 20 years to test competing theories about age, social relations and health. A third wave of the SRS will allow for unique opportunities to specify the direction and shape of change in the structure and quality of social relations over time. 2) Conduct an in-depth study of support exchanges and social contagion with multiple informants in a one year monthly longitudinal web-based study. We will test the relative strength of the three hypothesized mechanisms of social contagion: induction, homophile and shared environment. 3) Examine whether 20 year longitudinal patterns of social relations predict short term changes in enacted support over one year and identify long-term patterns of support type that predict short-term health trajectories. These unique data will permit an unparalleled examination of competing exchange theories, e.g. altruism, developmental stake, support bank, and their association with health innovation. We propose theoretical (test of competing theories) and methodological (20 year longitudinal data, multiple perspective network data, and web based follow-up) innovations to clarify recent complex and contradictory findings concerning health and social relations. Impact Findings will impact scholarship on the link between social relations and health as well as public policy focused programs designed to improve health and decrease health disparities.