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

描述(申请人提供)：相互竞争的理论和新出现的复杂性社会关系被广泛认识到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)社会关系和支持是如何随着年龄的变化而变化的，或者2)社会关系何时对健康最有利或最有害。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来社会关系的详细变化来解决这些问题。具体地说，我们建议：1)分析20年来的3波纵向数据，以检验关于年龄、社会关系和健康的相互竞争的理论。第三波工作人员关系报告将提供独特的机会，明确社会关系结构和质量随时间变化的方向和形式。2)深入研究 在为期一年的基于网络的每月纵向研究中，支持与多个告密者的交流和社会传染。我们将测试三种假设的社会传染机制的相对强度：诱导性、亲和性和共享环境。3)研究20年社会关系的纵向模式是否可以预测一年内制定的支持的短期变化，并确定预测短期健康轨迹的支持类型的长期模式。这些独特的数据将允许对相互竞争的交换理论进行无与伦比的审查，例如利他主义、发展股权、支持银行及其与医疗创新的关联。我们提出了理论(对相互竞争的理论的检验)和方法(20年纵向数据、多视角网络数据和基于网络的跟踪)的创新，以澄清最近关于健康和社会关系的复杂和矛盾的发现。IMPACT的研究结果将影响社会关系和健康之间联系的学术研究，以及旨在改善健康和减少健康差距的公共政策重点项目。

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.