Educational gradient in social network changes at disease diagnosis.

This study examines the educational gradient in social network changes following the diagnosis of new chronic diseases. Using a representative sample of the US older population, the author shows that the network size and amount of health-related discussion with social network members increased only for older adults with a bachelor's degree. Tie-level analyses reveal that such increase is from the activation of health discussion with the existing social network members, but not from the changes in discussion partners.

Out of Sync, Out of Society: Political Beliefs and Social Networks.

Who is more likely to be isolated from society in terms of political beliefs? To answer this question, we measure whether individuals' beliefs are "out of sync" - the extent to which their views differ with their contemporaries - and examine how the level of synchronization is associated with the size of important-matter and political-matter discussion networks. The results show that people with weaker belief synchronization are more likely to have smaller important-matter discussion networks. However, additional analyses of political-matter discussion networks show that weaker belief synchronization is associated with smaller networks only among those without a high school diploma and even provides some advantage in maintaining larger networks for the college-educated.

Social brain volume is associated with in-degree social network size among older adults.

The social brain hypothesis proposes that large neocortex size evolved to support cognitively demanding social interactions. Accordingly, previous studies have observed that larger orbitofrontal and amygdala structures predict the size of an individual's social network. However, it remains uncertain how an individual's social connectedness reported by other people is associated with the social brain volume.

Factors Associated with Insomnia among the Elderly in a Korean Rural Community.

Objective: Sleep disturbance is common in the elderly, which is result from multi-factorial causes encompassing socio-demographic, behavioral, and clinical factors. We aimed to identify factors associated with insomnia among the elderly in a rural community in South Korea, a country with a rapidly growing aged population.

Methods: This cross-sectional study used the data from the second wave of the Korean Social life, Health and Ageing Project, which is a cohort study of individuals living in a typical rural community in South Korea.

The Association between Social Network Betweenness and Coronary Calcium: A Baseline Study of Patients with a High Risk of Cardiovascular Disease.

Aim: The association of social networks with cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been demonstrated through various studies. This study aimed to examine the association between social network betweenness -a network position of mediating between diverse social groups-and coronary artery calcium.

Methods: The data of 1,384 participants from the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease Etiology Research Center-High Risk Cohort, a prospective cohort study enrolling patients with a high risk of developing CVD (clinicaltrials.

Brain functional connectivity difference in the complete network of an entire village: the role of social network size and embeddedness.

Social networks are known to protect cognitive function in old age. For the first time, this study examines how social network size and social network embeddedness measured by k-core score are associated with functional connectivity in the brain using the complete social network of an entire village. According to the results, social network size has both positive and negative associations with functional connectivity; showing no meaningful pattern relative to distance among brain regions.

Social network types among older Korean adults: Associations with subjective health.

With population aging now a global phenomenon, the health of older adults is becoming an increasingly important issue. Because the Korean population is aging at an unprecedented rate, preparing for public health problems associated with old age is particularly salient in this country. As the physical and mental health of older adults is related to their social relationships, investigating the social networks of older adults and their relationship to health status is important for establishing public health policies.

Social network properties and self-rated health in later life: comparisons from the Korean social life, health, and aging project and the national social life, health and aging project.

Background: This paper has two objectives. Firstly, it provides an overview of the social network module, data collection procedures, and measurement of ego-centric and complete-network properties in the Korean Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (KSHAP). Secondly, it directly compares the KSHAP structure and results to the ego-centric network structure and results of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), which conducted in-home interviews with 3,005 persons 57 to 85 years of age in the United States.