Advancing the Study of Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults Through the Use of Integrative Data Analysis

项目摘要 贫穷的社会关系是发病率和死亡率的主要因素，其影响与 已确定的风险因素，如吸烟和肥胖。社会隔离（缺乏社会接触） 和孤独感（孤独的感觉）与认知疾病和老年痴呆症的风险有关 和相关痴呆（ADRD）的老年人，但孤独和社会孤立的相对贡献， 认知结果仍然知之甚少。同样，社会和文化之间的不和谐程度 孤独和孤独在整个成年生活中积累，从中年到老年，这是否 与老年人的认知发病率、认知能力下降和痴呆风险的关系尚不清楚。特别感兴趣的是 老年人对孤立和孤独的脆弱性在身体距离中被放大的程度 为应对COVID-19疫情而采取的措施及其可能对 认知健康本提案将调查重叠程度或 主观孤独感与客观社会网络规模之间的不一致（社会不对称） 导致认知功能下降和痴呆风险，并加剧老年人的认知脆弱性 在COVID-19为了实现该项目的目标，我们将利用现有的大型纵向 这些研究收集了广泛的社会心理和认知因素，包括重复的 社会孤立、孤独和认知功能的既定指标的评估（例如，数字 和抽象推理、流畅性、处理速度和反应时间、工作记忆和情景记忆）。的 拟议的项目将使用协调的综合数据分析（IDA）方法来调查是否 社会不对称性的变化预测了11个代表性，前瞻性， 老龄化的纵向队列研究（BHPS/US、艾尔莎、HILDA、HRS、利斯、双胞胎、SATSA、SHARE、SHP， SOEP和UCL COVID-19社会研究），合并N超过220，000）。这个问题的核心假设是 有人提出，对孤独的敏感性可能是由客观和客观之间的差异所表征的。 社会关系的主观方面，1）在成年中期和后期很明显; 2）有助于 老年认知能力下降; 3）在COVID-19背景下加剧认知脆弱性 流行病这项研究的发现将为社会孤立和 随着时间的推移，以及社会不对称的动态模式如何与不同的认知联系在一起， 老年人的结果。更好地理解社会差异在认知老化中的作用可能会导致 解决老年人社会孤立和孤独问题的循证策略，识别 可改变的社会因素，可以防止或减缓老年认知能力下降的进展， 了解延长社交距离对老年人健康影响的方法。

PROJECT SUMMARY Impoverished social relationships are major contributors to morbidity and mortality, rivaling the effects of established risk factors such as cigarette smoking and obesity. Both social isolation (the lack of social contact) and loneliness (the perception of being alone) have been linked with cognitive morbidity and risk of Alzheimer's and related dementias (ADRD) in older adults, but the relative contribution of loneliness and social isolation to cognitive outcomes remain poorly understood. Similarly, the extent to which the discordance between social isolation and loneliness accumulates across the adult life span, from midlife to old age, and whether this relates to cognitive morbidity, decline, and dementia risk in older adults is unknown. Of particular interest is the extent to which older adults' vulnerability to isolation and loneliness is amplified amid physical distancing measures introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the long-terms impacts this may have on cognitive health. This proposal will investigate the hypothesis that changes in the degree of overlap or discordance between subjective feelings of loneliness and objective social network size (social asymmetry) contribute to cognitive function, decline, and dementia risk, and intensify older adults' cognitive vulnerability during COVID-19. To achieve the goals of the project, we will capitalize on existing large-scale longitudinal studies that have collected a broad array of psychosocial and cognitive factors, including repeated assessments of social isolation, loneliness, and established indicators of cognitive functioning (e.g., numeric and abstract reasoning, fluency, speed of processing and reaction time, working and episodic memory). The proposed project will use a coordinated integrative data analysis (IDA) approach to investigate whether changes in social asymmetry predict cognitive outcomes across eleven representative, prospective, longitudinal cohort studies of aging (BHPS/US, ELSA, HILDA, HRS, LISS, Octo-Twin, SATSA, SHARE, SHP, SOEP, and UCL COVID-19 Social Study) with a combined N of over 220,000). The central hypothesis of this proposal is that susceptibility to loneliness may be characterized by the discrepancy between objective and subjective aspects of social relationships which 1) is evident across middle and later adulthood; 2) contributes to cognitive decline in old age; and 3) exacerbates cognitive vulnerability in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings from this study will provide novel insights into the interplay between social isolation and loneliness over time, as well as how dynamic patterns of social asymmetry are linked to diverse cognitive outcomes in older adults. Better understanding of the role of social disparities in cognitive aging may lead to evidence-based strategies for addressing social isolation and loneliness in older adults, identification of modifiable social factors that may prevent or slow the progression of cognitive decline in old age, and novel approaches for understanding the impact of prolong social distancing on the health of older adults.