Loneliness and Health in Older Adults: A Mini-Review and Synthesis

Gerontology

Volumn 62, Issue 4, 2016, Pages 443-449

  Ong, Anthony D ^a   Uchino, Bert N ^b   Wethington, Elaine ^a  

^a Cornell University ^*  (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF UTAH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE   (United States)

Author keywords

Health; Loneliness; Morbidity; Mortality; Older adults; Social isolation

Indexed keywords

AGED; FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING; GERIATRICS; HUMAN; LONELINESS; MENTAL DISEASE; MENTAL HEALTH; PHYSICAL DISEASE; PREVALENCE; PRIORITY JOURNAL; REVIEW; SENESCENCE; SOCIAL COGNITION; SOCIAL INTERACTION; SOCIAL ISOLATION; SOCIAL REJECTION; UCLA LONELINESS SCALE; WELLBEING; AGING; HEALTH STATUS; HEALTHY AGING; MIDDLE AGED; PSYCHOLOGY; RISK FACTOR; VERY ELDERLY;

AGED; AGED, 80 AND OVER; AGING; HEALTH STATUS; HEALTHY AGING; HUMANS; LONELINESS; MIDDLE AGED; PREVALENCE; RISK FACTORS; SOCIAL ISOLATION;

EID: 84946771920     PISSN: 0304324X     EISSN: 14230003     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1159/000441651     Document Type: Review

References (40)

1. Uchino BN: Social support and health: a review of physiological processes potentially underlying links to disease outcomes. J Behav Med 2006; 29: 377-387.
2. Hawkley LC, Cacioppo JT: Loneliness matters: a theoretical and empirical review of consequences and mechanisms. Ann Behav Med 2010; 40: 218-227.
3. Berkman LF, Glass T, Brissette I, Seeman TE: From social integration to health: Durkheim in the new millennium. Soc Sci Med 2000; 51: 843-857.
4. Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Baker M, Harris T, Stephenson D: Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review. Perspect Psychol Sci 2015; 10: 227-237.
5. Wethington E, Pillemer K: Social isolation among older adults; in Coplan RJ, Bowker J (eds): Handbook of Solitude: Psychological Perspectives on Social Isolation, Social Withdrawal, and Being Alone. Malden, Wiley- Blackwell, 2014, pp 242-259.
6. Peplau LA, Perlman D: Perspectives on loneliness; in Peplau LA, Perlman D (eds): Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy. New York, Wiley, 1982, pp 1-8.
7. Cornwell EY, Waite LJ: Social disconnectedness, perceived isolation, and health among older adults. J Health Soc Behav 2009; 50: 31-48.
8. Wenger GC, Davies S, Shahtahmasebi S, Scott A: Social isolation and loneliness in old age: review and model refinement. Ageing Soc 1996; 16: 333-358.
9. Pinquart M, Sörensen S: Influences on loneliness in older adults: a meta-analysis. Basic Appl Soc Psychol 2001; 23: 245-266.
10. Shiovitz-Ezra S, Ayalon L: Use of direct versus indirect approaches to measure loneliness in later life. Res Aging 2012; 34: 572-591.
11. Russell DW: UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. J Pers Assess 1996; 66: 20-40.
12. de Jong Gierveld J, Kamphuis F: The development of a Rasch-type loneliness scale. Appl Psychol Meas 1985; 9: 289-299.
13. Hughes ME, Waite LJ, Hawkley LC, Cacioppo JT: A short scale for measuring loneliness in large surveys: results from two populationbased studies. Res Aging 2004; 26: 655-672.
14. Theeke LA: Predictors of loneliness in US adults over age sixty-five. Arch Psychiatr Nurs 2009; 23: 387-396.
15. Perissinotto CM, Stojacic Cenzer I, Covinsky KE: Loneliness in older persons: a predictor of functional decline and death. Arch Intern Med 2012; 172: 1078-1084.
16. Wilson C, Moulton B: Loneliness among older adults: a national survey of adults 45+. Prepared by Knowledge Networks and Insight Policy Research. Washington, DC, AARP, 2010.
17. Yang K, Victor C: Aging and loneliness in 25 European nations. Ageing Soc 2011; 31: 1368-1388.
18. Nicolaisen M, Thorsen K: Who are lonely? Loneliness in different age groups (18-81 years old), using two measures of loneliness. Int J Aging Hum Dev 2014; 78: 229-257.
19. Yang K, Victor CR: The prevalence of and risk factors for loneliness among older adults in China. Ageing Soc 2008; 28: 305-327.
20. Stessman J, Rottenberg Y, Shimshilashvili I, Ein-Mor E, Jacobs JM: Loneliness, health, and longevity. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 2014; 69: 744-750.
21. Pinquart M, Sörensen S: Risk factor for loneliness in adulthood and old age - A meta-analysis; in Shohov SP (ed): Advances in Psychology Research. Hauppauge, Nova Science Publishers, 2003, vol 19, pp 111-143.
22. Cacioppo S, Capitanio JP, Cacioppo JT: Toward a neurology of loneliness. Psychol Bull 2014; 140: 1464-1504.
23. Luo Y, Waite LJ: Loneliness and mortality among older adults in China. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 2014; 69: 633-645.
24. Luo Y, Hawkley LC, Waite LJ, Cacioppo JT: Loneliness, health, and mortality in old age: a national longitudinal study. Soc Sci Med 2012; 74: 907-914.
25. Steptoe A, Shankar A, Demakakos P, Wardle J: Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in older men and women. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2013; 110: 5797-5801.
26. Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB: Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. PLoS Med 2010; 7: 1-20.
27. Hawkley LC, Preacher KJ, Cacioppo JT: Loneliness impairs daytime functioning but not sleep duration. Health Psychol 2010; 29: 124-129.
28. Jacobs JM, Cohen A, Hammerman-Rozenberg R, Stessman J: Global sleep satisfaction of older people: the Jerusalem Cohort Study. J Am Geriatr Soc 2006; 54: 325-329.
29. Cacioppo JT, Hawkley LC: Perceived social isolation and cognition. Trends Cogn Sci 2009; 13: 447-454.
30. Cacioppo S, Cacioppo JT: Decoding the invisible forces of social connections. Front Integr Neurosci 2012; 6: 1-7.
31. Cacioppo JT, Norris CJ, Decety J, Monteleone G, Nusbaum H: In the eye of the beholder: individual differences in perceived social isolation predict regional brain activation to social stimuli. J Cogn Neurosci 2009; 21: 83-92.
32. Kanai R, Bahrami B, Duchaine B, et al: Brain structure links loneliness to social perception. Curr Biol 2012; 20: 1975-1979.
33. Masi CM, Chen H, Hawkley LC, Cacioppo JT: A meta-analysis of interventions to reduce loneliness. Pers Soc Psychol Rev 2011; 15: 219-266.
34. Findlay RA: Interventions to reduce social isolation amongst older people: where is the evidence? Ageing Soc 2003; 23: 647-658.
35. Cohen-Mansfield J, Perach R: Interventions for alleviating loneliness among older persons: a critical review. Am J Health Promot 2015; 29: 109-125.
36. Bath PA, Deeg D, Poppelaars J: The harmonisation of longitudinal data: a case study using data from cohort studies in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Ageing Soc 2010; 30: 1419-1437.
37. Cacioppo JT, Hawkley LC, Ernst JM, et al: Loneliness within a nomological net: an evolutionary perspective. J Res Pers 2006; 40: 6.
38. Eisenberger NI, Cole SW: Social neuroscience and health: neurophysiological mechanisms linking social ties with physical health. Nat Neurosci 2012; 15: 669-674.
39. Cacioppo JT, Cacioppo S, Cole SW, et al: Loneliness across phylogeny and a call for comparative studies and animal models. Perspect Psychol Sci 2015; 10: 202-212.
40. Cacioppo JT, Hawkley LC, Thisted RA: Perceived social isolation makes me sad: 5-year cross-lagged analyses of loneliness and depressive symptomatology in the Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study. Psychol Aging 2010; 25: 453-463.