Waite LJ, Duvoisin R, Kotwal AA. Social Health in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 2021;
76:S251-S265. [PMID:
34918156 PMCID:
PMC8678439 DOI:
10.1093/geronb/gbab138]
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Abstract
OBJECTIVES
In this article, we present the theoretical framework that guided the development of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) including the measures of social health. We discuss the literature that links social measures to other outcomes, and we discuss in detail how researchers might construct common measures of social health, including those that reflect social relationships, sexuality, social networks, social resources, and social participation.
METHODS
The NSHAP includes multiple detailed measures of social health, collected in the rounds of data collection carried out in 2005, 2010, and 2015, allowing for study of changes over time and as people age among a nationally representative sample of the community-dwelling population of older adults in the United States.
RESULTS
We define indicators of social health, describe measures of each in the 2015 round of NSHAP, and show the distribution of the measures by gender and age. We present scales of dimensions of social health that have been developed elsewhere and describe their properties.
DISCUSSION
We briefly discuss the distribution of these measures by age and gender in the 2015 round of NSHAP. Simple analyses of these categorized measures reveal differences by age and gender that deserve closer attention in future investigations using the NSHAP data.
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