Social Connections Over the Life Course: Appreciating Distinct Dimensions of Social Connections.

Despite growing attention to the social isolation crisis in the U.S., it remains unclear whether Americans experience a decline in social connection with age.

Negative Social Ties as Emerging Risk Factors for Accelerated Aging, Inflammation, and Multimorbidity.

Negative social ties, or "hasslers," are pervasive yet understudied components of social networks that may accelerate biological aging and morbidity. Using ego-centric network data and DNA methylation-based biological aging clocks from a representative Indiana sample, we demonstrate that negative social ties are surprisingly common: on average, one in four network members is described as a hassler, and nearly 60% of individuals report having at least one. Results show that having more hasslers is associated with accelerated biological aging, with the most pronounced associations observed among individuals whose networks comprise more than 50% hasslers.

Resilience Through Social Connectedness and Cognition: Is Theory of Mind a Form of Enrichment for Older adults?

Objective: Social connectedness is a modifiable lifestyle factor that delays age-related cognitive decline. Using cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental approaches, we examined whether theory of mind-inferring what others think or feel-is a potential mechanism underlying this relationship.

Methods: In Study 1, 305 community-dwelling older adults participating in two different, but related, studies completed comprehensive measures of general cognition, theory of mind, and personal social networks.

Considerations for Social Networks and Health Data Sharing: An Overview.

The use of network analysis as a tool has increased exponentially as more clinical researchers see the benefits of network data for modeling of infectious disease transmission or translational activities in a variety of areas, including patient-caregiving teams, provider networks, patient-support networks, and adoption of health behaviors or treatments, to name a few. Yet, relational data such as network data carry a higher risk of deductive disclosure. Cases of reidentification have occurred and this is expected to become more common as computational ability increases.

Social and general cognition are uniquely associated with social connectedness in later life.

The mechanisms by which older adults maintain large, complex social networks are not well understood. Prior work has primarily focused on general cognitive ability (e.g.

Pandemic Precarity: COVID-19's Impact on Mexican and Central American Immigrant Families.

Objective: The study examines the association of gender, parenthood, and marriage with reports of perceived pandemic precarity among Mexican and Central American immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic (Fall 2020) to understand predictors of vulnerability in periods of crisis.

Background: Latinos/as, immigrants, parents, and women have faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Family structure, along with social expectations for gender (i.

Associations Between Social Network Characteristics and Brain Structure Among Older Adults.

Introduction: Social connectedness is associated with slower cognitive decline among older adults. Recent research suggests that distinct aspects of social networks may have differential effects on cognitive resilience, but few studies analyze brain structure.

Methods: This study includes 117 cognitively impaired and 59 unimpaired older adults.

Social Networks, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Emerging Adults' Mental Health: Resiliency Through Social Bonding and Cohesion.

To assess how personal social network characteristics moderated mental health declines during the COVID-19 pandemic in emerging adults compared with other age groups. The Person to Person Health Interview Study, a representative, probability-based cohort study (n = 2485) in Indiana, collected data through face-to-face (baseline) and phone (follow-up) interviews before and during the pandemic. We used survey-weighted growth curve models to examine network effects on computer-adaptive testing measures of depression and anxiety severity.

Comparing professional communities: Opioid prescriber networks and Public Health Preparedness Districts.

Problem opioid use and opioid-related drug overdoses remain a major public health concern despite attempts to reduce and monitor opioid prescriptions and increase access to office-based opioid treatment. Current provider-focused interventions are implemented at the federal, state, regional, and local levels but have not slowed the epidemic. Certain targeted interventions aimed at opioid prescribers rely on populations defined along geographic, political, or administrative boundaries; however, those boundaries may not align well with actual provider-patient communities or with the geographic distribution of high-risk opioid use.

Detecting Variation in Clinical Practice Patterns for Geriatric Trauma Care Using Social Network Analysis.

Objective: To characterize hospital-level professional networks of physicians caring for older trauma patients as a function of trauma patient age distribution.

Background: The causal factors associated with between-hospital variation in geriatric trauma outcomes are poorly understood. Variation in physician practice patterns reflected by differences in professional networks might contribute to hospital-level differences in outcomes for older trauma patients.

Social enrichment on the job: Complex work with people improves episodic memory, promotes brain reserve, and reduces the risk of dementia.

Individuals with more complex jobs experience better cognitive function in old age and a lower risk of dementia, yet complexity has multiple dimensions. Drawing on the Social Networks in Alzheimer Disease study, we examine the association between occupational complexity and cognition in a sample of older adults (N = 355). A standard deviation (SD) increase in complex work with people is associated with a 9% to 12% reduction in the probability of mild cognitive impairment or dementia, a 0.

Random sampling of alters from networks: A promising direction in egocentric network research.

The social network perspective has great potential for advancing knowledge of social mechanisms in many fields. However, collecting egocentric (i.e.

Intergroup relationships with people who use drugs: A personal network approach.

Positive and meaningful intergroup contact between people who use drugs and those with the potential to provide positive social interactions has been identified as an important pathway to address the burden of drug use by reducing stigmatizing views and behaviors. Traditional approaches to intergroup contact typically rely on laboratory experiments or survey vignettes to examine the consequences of variation in contact conditions and relationships. Although seldom measured, contact occurs naturally through individuals' personal social networks.

Comparing measures of centrality in bipartite patient-prescriber networks: A study of drug seeking for opioid analgesics.

Visiting multiple prescribers is a common method for obtaining prescription opioids for nonmedical use and has played an important role in fueling the United States opioid epidemic, leading to increased drug use disorder and overdose. Recent studies show that centrality of the bipartite network formed by prescription ties between patients and prescribers of opioids is a promising indicator for drug seeking. However, node prominence in bipartite networks is typically estimated with methods that do not fully account for the two-mode topology of the underlying network.

Functional Status, Mood State, and Physical Activity Among Women With Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome.

While organ-specific pathophysiology has been well-described in SARS-CoV-2 infection, less is known about the attendant effects on functional status, mood state and leisure-time physical activity (PA) in post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PASC). A case-control design was employed to recruit 32 women ( = 17 SARS-CoV-2; = 15 controls) matched on age (54 ± 12 years) and body mass index (27 ± 6 kg/m) that did not differ by smoking status or history of cardiopulmonary disease. Participants completed a series of assessments including Profile of Mood States (POMS), Modified Pulmonary Functional Status and Dyspnea Questionnaire (PFSDQ-M), and Godin-Shephard Leisure-Time PA.

What kinds of social networks protect older adults' health during a pandemic? The tradeoff between preventing infection and promoting mental health.

When the coronavirus emerged in early 2020, older adults were at heightened risk of contracting the virus, and of suffering mental health consequences from the pandemic and from the precautions designed to mitigate it. In this paper, we examine how social networks to the pandemic helped to shape health beliefs, behaviors, and outcomes among older adults during its onset, focusing on (1) perceived risk of COVID-19, (2) preventative health behaviors, and (3) mental health, including loneliness, perceived stress, depression, and anxiety. Drawing on the longitudinal Social Networks in Alzheimer Disease study, we find that networks high in predict greater perceived risk and more precautions taken, but worse mental health.

Addiction onset and offset characteristics and public stigma toward people with common substance dependencies: A large national survey experiment.

Drug-related overdose deaths topped 100,000 between 2020 and 2021. Opioids and stimulants are implicated as the primary drivers of this public health crisis. Stigma remains one of the primary barriers to treatment and recovery from substance use disorders.

Online misinformation is linked to early COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and refusal.

Widespread uptake of vaccines is necessary to achieve herd immunity. However, uptake rates have varied across U.S.

Do subjective or objective cognitive measures better predict social network type among older adults?

A large literature highlights the link between cognitive function and social networks in later life. Yet there remains uncertainty about the factors driving this relationship. In the present study, we use measures of subjective cognitive decline and clinical cognitive assessments on a sample of older adults to investigate whether the relationship between cognitive function and social networks is driven by psychosocial factors.

Cognitively stimulating environments and cognitive reserve: the case of personal social networks.

Cognitively stimulating environments are thought to be protective of cognitive decline and onset of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) through the development of cognitive reserve (CR). CR refers to cognitive adaptability that buffers the impact of brain pathology on cognitive function. Despite the critical need to identify cognitively stimulating environments to build CR, there is no consensus regarding which environmental determinants are most effective.

Public Stigma and Personal Networks: Confronting the Limitations of Unidimensional Measures of Social Contact.

One of the most promising directions for reducing mental illness stigma lies in Allport's contact theory, which suggests that intergroup interactions reduce stigma. Here, we argue that stigmatizing attitudes are driven by the nature, magnitude, and valence of community-based ties to people with mental illness (PMI), not simply their presence. Using the 2018 General Social Survey (N = 1,113), we compare network-based measures of contact to traditional survey indicators.

Discordant benevolence: How and why people help others in the face of conflicting values.

What happens when a request for help from friends or family members invokes conflicting values? In answering this question, we integrate and extend two literatures: support provision within social networks and moral decision-making. We examine the willingness of Americans who deem abortion immoral to help a close friend or family member seeking one. Using data from the General Social Survey and 74 in-depth interviews from the National Abortion Attitudes Study, we find that a substantial minority of Americans morally opposed to abortion would enact what we call discordant benevolence: providing help when doing so conflicts with personal values.

Functional status, mood state, and physical activity among women with post-acute COVID-19 syndrome.

Objectives: While organ-specific pathophysiology has been well-described in SARS-CoV-2 infection, less is known about the attendant effects on functional status, mood state and leisure-time physical activity (PA) in post-acute COVID-19 syndrome.

Methods: A case-control design was employed to recruit 32 women ( = 17 SARS-CoV-2; = 15 controls) matched on age (54 ± 12 years), body mass index (27 ± 6 kg/m ), smoking status, and history of cardiopulmonary disease. Participants completed a series of assessments including the Modified Pulmonary Functional Status and Dyspnea Questionnaire (PFSDQ-M), Profile of Mood States (POMS), and Godin-Shephard Leisure-Time PA.