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健康促进行为和更少的冒险行为有关。反过来，健康行为影响健康，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种以上的可能机制，并且没有解决影响生命过程变化的问题。拟议的研究旨在填补这些空白，并通过以下方式对生命过程中的社会关系和健康行为进行全面评估：（1）随着时间的推移以及与年龄，种族和性别的关系，发展健康行为轨迹的概况，（2）考虑不同类型的社会关系对健康行为的影响如何随着生命过程以及种族和性别而变化，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。纵向数据从一个四波全国调查涵盖了15年的时间跨度（美国人的生活改变ACL）将被用来解决这些目标。个人健康行为随时间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之间可能的相互作用，以及特定机制如何改变生命过程中的健康行为轨迹。一个定性的分析也提出了阐明的动态过程和象征意义，通过社会关系影响健康行为的生命历程。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和健康行为之间的联系，在生命过程中，将有助于临床医生和政策制定者，以确定战略干预点，旨在针对特定年龄组和特定的健康行为的干预点。

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.