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

项目总结 贫困的社会关系是发病率和死亡率的主要贡献者，其影响与 已确定的危险因素，如吸烟和肥胖。既有社会孤立(缺乏社会联系) 孤独(独处的感觉)与认知疾病和阿尔茨海默氏症的风险有关 老年人中的痴呆(ADRD)，但孤独和社会孤立对 人们对认知结果仍然知之甚少。同样，社会与社会之间的不和谐程度 从中年到老年，孤独和孤独在成年人的一生中不断积累，无论这是不是 与老年人的认知发病率、认知功能下降和痴呆症风险有关尚不清楚。特别值得关注的是 老年人对孤立和孤独的脆弱性在身体距离中放大的程度 为应对新冠肺炎疫情而推出的措施以及这可能对 认知健康。这项提议将调查这样一个假设，即重叠程度的变化或 主观孤独感与客观社交网络规模之间的不协调(社交不对称) 会导致认知功能下降和痴呆症风险，并加剧老年人的认知脆弱性 在新冠肺炎期间。为了实现项目的目标，我们将利用现有的大型纵向 收集了广泛的心理社会和认知因素的研究，包括重复 评估社交孤立、孤独和认知功能的既定指标(例如，数字 以及抽象推理、流畅性、处理速度和反应时间、工作和情景记忆)。这个 拟议的项目将使用协调的综合数据分析(IDA)方法来调查 社会不对称性的变化预测了11个具有代表性、前瞻性、 老龄化纵向队列研究(BHPS/US，ELSA，HILDA，HRS，LISS，Octo-Twin，SATSA，Share，SHP， SOEP和伦敦大学学院新冠肺炎社会研究)，N合计超过220,000)。这一点的中心假设是 有人提出，对孤独的敏感性可能表现为客观和客观之间的差异 社会关系的主观方面：1)在成年中后期表现明显；2)有助于 3)加剧了新冠肺炎背景下的认知脆弱性 大流行。这项研究的发现将为社会隔离和社会隔离之间的相互作用提供新的见解。 孤独随着时间的推移，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 在老年人中的结果。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的循证战略，确定 可改变的社会因素，可以防止或减缓老年认知衰退的进展，而且新奇 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.