Dataset Information

Social relationships and allostatic load in the MIDUS study.

ABSTRACT: This study examines how the social environment is related to allostatic load (AL), a multisystem index of biological risk.A national sample of adults (N = 949) aged 34-84 rated their relationships with spouse, family, and friends at 2 time points 10 years apart. At the second time point, participants completed a biological protocol in which indices of autonomic, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, cardiovascular, inflammatory, and metabolic function were obtained and used to create an AL summary score. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the associations among 3 aspects of social relationships-social support, social negativity, and frequency of social contact-and AL.Higher levels of spouse negativity, family negativity, friend contact, and network level contact were each associated with higher AL, and higher levels of spouse support were associated with lower AL, independent of age, sociodemographic factors, and health covariates. Tests for age interactions suggested that friend support and network support were each associated with higher AL among older adults, but at younger ages there appeared to be no association between friend support and AL and a negative association between network support and AL. For network negativity, there was a marginal interaction such that network negativity was associated with higher AL among younger adults but there was no association among older adults.These findings demonstrate that structural and functional aspects of the social environment are associated with AL, and extend previous work by demonstrating that these associations vary based on the type of relationship assessed and by age.

SUBMITTER: Brooks KP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4104264 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Social relationships and allostatic load in the MIDUS study.

Brooks Kathryn P KP Gruenewald Tara T Karlamangla Arun A Hu Peifung P Koretz Brandon B Seeman Teresa E TE

Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association 20140120 11

<h4>Objective</h4>This study examines how the social environment is related to allostatic load (AL), a multisystem index of biological risk.<h4>Method</h4>A national sample of adults (N = 949) aged 34-84 rated their relationships with spouse, family, and friends at 2 time points 10 years apart. At the second time point, participants completed a biological protocol in which indices of autonomic, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, cardiovascular, inflammatory, and metabolic function were obtaine ...[more]

PMID: 24447186

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Project description:OBJECTIVES:To investigate potential geographical and socioeconomic patterning of allostatic load (AL) in China. DESIGN:Multilevel longitudinal study of the 2010 Chronic Disease Risk Factor Surveillance linked to the National Death Surveillance up to 31 December 2015. SETTING:All 31 provinces in China, not including Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan. PARTICIPANTS:96 466 ≥ 18 years old (women=54.3%). EXPOSURES:Person-level educational attainment and mean years of education in counties. OUTCOME:AL was measured using clinical guidelines for nine biomarkers: body mass index; waist circumference; systolic blood pressure; diastolic blood pressure; fasting blood glucose; total cholesterol; triglycerides; high-density lipoprotein cholesterol; low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. RESULTS:Multilevel logistic regressions adjusted for sex, age, marital status, person-level education, county mean years of education and urban/rural reported ORs of 1.22 (95% CI 1.08 to 1.38) for 5-year all-cause mortality (n=3284) and 1.20 (1.04-1.37) for deaths from non-communicable diseases (n=2891) among people in AL quintile 5 (high) compared with quintile 1 (low). The median rate ratio estimated from unadjusted multilevel negative binomial regression showed AL clustered geographically (province=1.14; county=1.12; town=1.11; village=1.14). After adjusting for aforementioned confounders, AL remained higher with age (rate ratio 1.02, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.02), higher in women compared with men (1.17, 1.15 to 1.19), lower among singletons (0.83, 0.81 to 0.85) and widowers (0.96, 0.94 to 0.98). AL was lower among people with university-level compared with no education (0.92, 0.89 to 0.96), but higher in counties with higher mean education years (1.03, 1.01 to 1.05). A two-way interaction suggested AL was higher (1.04, 1.02 to 1.06) among those with university-level compared with no education within counties with higher mean years of education. Similar results were observed for alternative constructions of AL using 75th and 80th percentile cut-points. CONCLUSIONS:AL in China is patterned geographically. The degree of association between AL and person-level education seems to be dependent on area-level education, which may be a proxy for other contextual factors that warrant investigation.

Project description:The contemporaneous association between higher socioeconomic position and better health is well established. Life course research has also demonstrated a lasting effect of childhood socioeconomic conditions on adult health and well-being. Yet, little is known about the separate health effects of intergenerational mobility-moving into a different socioeconomic position than one's parents-among early adults in the United States. Most studies on the health implications of mobility rely on cross-sectional datasets, which makes it impossible to differentiate between health selection and social causation effects. In addition, understanding the effects of social mobility on health at a relatively young age has been hampered by the paucity of health measures that reliably predict disease onset. Analysing 4,713 respondents aged 25 to 32 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health's Waves I and IV, we use diagonal reference models to separately identify the effects of socioeconomic origin and destination, as well as social mobility on allostatic load among individuals in the United States. Using a combined measure of educational and occupational attainment, and accounting for individuals' initial health, we demonstrate that in addition to health gradient among the socially immobile, individuals' socioeconomic origin and destination are equally important for multi-system physiological dysregulation. Short-range upward mobility also has a positive and significant association with health. After mitigating health selection concerns in our observational data, this effect is observed only among those reporting poor health before experiencing social mobility. Our findings move towards the reconciliation of two theoretical perspectives, confirming the positive effect of upward mobility as predicted by the "rags to riches" perspective, while not contradicting potential costs associated with more extensive upward mobility experiences as predicted by the dissociative thesis.

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Social relationships and allostatic load in the MIDUS study.

Publications

Social relationships and allostatic load in the MIDUS study.

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