Social Ties and Health Behavior Over the Life Course

描述(由申请人提供)：参与社会关系与更多的促进健康的行为和更少的冒险行为有关。反过来，健康行为会影响健康、残疾和死亡率。以前的研究只考虑了影响健康行为的几种特定关系类型，很少考虑将社会关系与健康行为联系起来的一个以上可能的机制，也没有解决生命过程影响差异的问题。这项拟议的研究旨在填补这些空白，并通过以下方式对社会关系和生命过程中的健康行为进行全面评估：(1)发展健康行为轨迹随时间以及与年龄、种族和性别有关的概况；(2)考虑不同类型的社会关系对健康行为的影响如何随生命过程以及种族和性别的不同而变化；以及(3)考虑将社会关系和特定健康行为联系起来的最重要的心理社会机制是否取决于年龄、种族或性别。来自一项涵盖15年时间跨度的四波全国调查(美国人的改变生活-ACL)的纵向数据将用于解决这些目标。随着时间的推移，个人健康行为变化的动态轨迹需要特定的分析技术。增长曲线分析将用于考虑特定健康行为的基线水平、这些行为随时间的变化率、社会参与和健康行为随时间的可能互惠关系，以及特定机制如何改变生命过程中的健康行为轨迹。定性分析也被用来阐明社会关系在生命过程中影响健康行为的动态过程和象征意义。这项拟议的研究旨在确定可能促进成功衰老的可改变的风险和保护因素。更好地了解社会参与与生命过程中健康行为之间的联系，将有助于临床医生和政策制定者确定干预的战略要点--旨在针对特定年龄段和特定健康行为的干预点。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Involvement in social relationships is associated with more health-promoting behaviors and fewer risk-taking behaviors. In turn, health behavior affects health, disability, and mortality. Previous research has considered only a couple of specific relationship types in affecting health behavior, rarely considers more than one possible mechanism linking social ties to health behavior, and has not addressed the issue of life course variation in effects. The proposed research is designed to fill these gaps and create a comprehensive assessment of social ties and health behavior over the life course by: (1) Developing profiles of health behavior trajectories over time and in relation to age, race, and gender, (2) Considering how the impact of different types of social ties on health behavior varies over the life course and by race and gender, and (3) Considering whether the most important psychosocial mechanisms linking social ties and specific health behaviors depend on age, race, or gender. Longitudinal data from a four-wave national survey covering a fifteen year time span (the Americans' Changing Lives-ACL) will be used to address these objectives. The dynamic trajectories of individual change in health behavior over time require specific analytic techniques. Growth curve analysis will be used to consider baseline levels of specific health behaviors, the rate of change in those behaviors over time, possible reciprocity between social involvement and health behavior over time, and how specific mechanisms may modify health behavior trajectories over the life course. A qualitative analysis is also proposed to elucidate the dynamic processes and symbolic meanings through which social ties affect health behavior over the life course. The proposed research is designed to identify modifiable risk and protective factors that may foster successful aging. A better understanding of the link between social involvement and health behavior over the life course will help clinicians and policy makers to identify strategic points for intervention-intervention points that are designed to target particular age groups and specific health behaviors.