Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review
Holt-Lunstad, Smith and Layton conducted the meta-analytic review that gave this subject its authority, asking how far social relationships influence mortality risk, which aspects are most predictive, and what moderates the association. Across 148 studies and 308,849 participants, the random-effects weighted average effect indicated a fifty per cent increased likelihood of survival for participants with stronger social relationships. The finding held across age, sex, initial health status, cause of death and follow-up period. Significant differences appeared across the type of social measurement used: the association was strongest for complex measures of social integration and lowest, not reaching significance, for binary indicators of residential status, meaning living alone against living with others. The authors conclude that the influence of social relationships on mortality risk is comparable with well-established risk factors. This vault reads the measurement gradient with a reverse-causation caution attached.
Holt-Lunstad, Smith and Layton conducted the meta-analytic review that gave this subject its authority, asking how far social relationships influence mortality risk, which aspects are most predictive, and what moderates the association. Across 148 studies and 308,849 participants, the random-effects weighted average effect indicated a fifty per cent increased likelihood of survival for participants with stronger social relationships. The finding held across age, sex, initial health status, cause of death and follow-up period. Significant differences appeared across the type of social measurement used: the association was strongest for complex measures of social integration and lowest, not reaching significance, for binary indicators of residential status, meaning living alone against living with others. The authors conclude that the influence of social relationships on mortality risk is comparable with well-established risk factors. This vault reads the measurement gradient with a reverse-causation caution attached.
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Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). 'Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review.' PLoS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316. 148 studies, 308,849 participants; a 50 per cent increased likelihood of survival for those with stronger social relationships, consistent across age, sex, initial health status, cause of death and follow-up period; strongest for complex measures of social integration and lowest for binary indicators of residential status. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316
Where we use it
- Which Is Worse, Being Alone or Feeling Lonely, Why We Belong
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The source
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316