Appl Psychol Health Well Being
February 2025
Accumulating studies have documented strong associations between a higher sense of control and improved health and well-being outcomes. However, less is known about the determinants of increased sense of control. Our analysis used data from 13,771 older adults in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS)-a diverse, longitudinal, and national study of adults aged >50 in the United States.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDoes higher perceived neighborhood social cohesion in adolescence lead to better health and well-being 10-12 years later? We evaluated this question using data from a large, prospective, and nationally representative sample of US adolescents (Add Health; N = 10,963), and an outcome-wide approach. Across 38 outcomes, perceived neighborhood social cohesion was associated with some: mental health outcomes (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Several intergovernmental organizations, including the World Health Organization and United Nations, are urging countries to use well-being indicators for policymaking. This trend, coupled with increasing recognition that positive affect is beneficial for health/well-being, opens new avenues for intervening on positive affect to improve outcomes. However, it remains unclear if positive affect in adolescence shapes health/well-being in adulthood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Epidemiol Community Health
March 2024
Background: Community belonging, an important constituent of subjective well-being, is an important target for improving population health. Ageing involves transitioning across different social conditions thus, community belonging on health may vary across the life course. Using a nationally representative cohort, this study estimates the life stage-specific impact of community belonging on premature mortality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe detrimental effects of loneliness and social isolation on health and well-being outcomes are well documented. In response, governments, corporations, and community-based organizations have begun leveraging tools to create interventions and policies aimed at reducing loneliness and social isolation at scale. However, these efforts are frequently hampered by a key knowledge gap: when attempting to improve specific health and well-being outcomes, decision-makers are often unsure whether to target loneliness, social isolation, or both.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: While informal helping has been linked to a reduced risk of mortality, it remains unclear if this association persists across different levels of key social structural moderators.
Purpose: To examine whether the longitudinal association between informal helping and all-cause mortality differs by specific social structural moderators (including age, gender, race/ethnicity, wealth, income, and education) in a large, prospective, national, and diverse sample of older U.S.
Background: Growing evidence suggests that informal helping (unpaid volunteering not coordinated by an organization or institution) is associated with improved health and well-being outcomes. However, studies have not investigated whether changes in informal helping are associated with subsequent health and well-being.
Methods: This study evaluated if changes in informal helping (between t;2006/2008 and t;2010/2012) were associated with 35 indicators of physical, behavioral, and psychosocial health and well-being (at t;2014/2016) using data from 12,998 participants in the Health and Retirement study - a national cohort of US adults aged > 50.
Psychological well-being, characterized by feelings, cognitions, and strategies that are associated with positive functioning (including hedonic and eudaimonic well-being), has been linked with better physical health and greater longevity. Importantly, psychological well-being can be strengthened with interventions, providing a strategy for improving population health. But are the effects of well-being interventions meaningful, durable, and scalable enough to improve health at a population-level? To assess this possibility, a cross-disciplinary group of scholars convened to review current knowledge and develop a research agenda.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci
July 2023
Psychosocial risk factors have been linked with accelerated epigenetic aging, but little is known about whether psychosocial resilience factors (eg, Sense of Purpose in Life) might reduce epigenetic age acceleration. In this study, we tested if older adults who experience high levels of Purpose might show reduced epigenetic age acceleration. We evaluated the relationship between Purpose and epigenetic age acceleration as measured by 13 DNA methylation (DNAm) "epigenetic clocks" assessed in 1 572 older adults from the Health and Retirement Study (mean age 70 years).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Volunteering is associated with improved health and well-being outcomes, including a reduced risk of mortality. However, the biological mechanisms underlying the association between volunteering and healthy aging and longevity have not been well-established. We evaluated if volunteering was associated with reduced epigenetic age acceleration in older adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe used prospective data (spanning 8 years) from a national sample of older U.S. adults aged > 50 years (the Health and Retirement Study, N = 13,771) to evaluate potential factors that lead to subsequent religious service attendance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs our society ages and healthcare costs escalate, researchers and policymakers urgently seek potentially modifiable predictors of reduced healthcare utilization. We aimed to determine whether changes in 62 candidate predictors were associated with reduced frequency, and duration, of overnight hospitalizations. We used data from 11,374 participants in the Health and Retirement Study-a national sample of adults aged >50 in the United States.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe examined the associations between a sense of purpose and all-cause mortality by gender and race/ethnicity groups. Data were from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative cohort study of U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: Prior research documents strong associations between an increased sense of in life and improved health and well-being outcomes. However, less is known about candidate antecedents that lead to more purpose among older adults.
Methods: We used data from 13,771 participants in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) - a diverse, national panel study of adults aged >50 in the United States, to evaluate a large number of candidate predictors of purpose.
While growing evidence documents strong associations between volunteering and improved health and well-being outcomes, less is known about the health and well-being factors that lead to increased volunteering. Using data from 13,771 participants in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS)-a diverse, longitudinal, and national sample of older adults in the United States-we evaluated a large range of candidate predictors of volunteering. Specifically, using generalized linear regression models with a lagged exposure-wide approach, we evaluated if changes in 61 predictors spanning physical health, health behaviors, and psychosocial well-being (over a 4-year follow-up between t; 2006/2008 and t; 2010/2012) were associated with volunteer activity four years later (t; 2014/2016).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPsychoneuroendocrinology
July 2022
Background: A higher sense of purpose in life has been linked with reduced risk of age-related chronic health conditions that share elevated inflammation as a key risk factor (e.g., neurodegenerative diseases, heart disease, and diabetes).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Having a purpose in life has been linked to improved health and wellbeing; however, it remains unknown whether having ""-a related but broader concept in Japan-is also beneficial for various physical and psychosocial outcomes.
Methods: Using data from a nationwide longitudinal study of Japanese older adults aged ≥65 years, we examined the associations between having in 2013 and a wide range of subsequent outcomes assessed in 2016 across two databases (n = 6,441 and n = 8,041), including dimensions of physical health, health behavior, psychological distress, social wellbeing, subjective wellbeing, and pro-social/altruistic behaviors. We adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics and the outcome values (whenever data were available) in the prior wave (2010).
Importance: Researchers and policy makers are expanding the focus from risk factors of disease to seek potentially modifiable health factors that enhance people's health and well-being. Understanding if and to what degree aging satisfaction (one's beliefs about their own aging) is associated with a range of health and well-being outcomes aligns with the interests of older adults, researchers, health systems, and politicians.
Objectives: To evaluate associations between changes in aging satisfaction and 35 subsequent health and well-being outcomes.