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Social support and self-reported health status of older adults in the United States

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  • White, A.M.
  • Philogene, G.S.
  • Fine, L.
  • Sinha, S.

Abstract

Objectives. We determined whether a representative national probability sample of US community-dwelling older adults who reported less social support also reported poorer general health status, which is a robust predictor of prospective mortality among elders. Methods. We analyzed 2 subsamples generated via random sampling with replacement from the full analytic sample of adults aged 60 years and older in the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (n= 3476). We built multinomial logit models with the first analytic subsample (n=1732). Then we tested the final models on the second subsample (n=1744) to assess the differences in odds of reporting poor, fair, or good versus very good or excellent health. We fit the cross-validated final models to the full analytic sample. Results. After we controlled for age, race, gender, and educational attainment, older persons across all analytic samples who reported that they needed more support also reported having poorer health compared with better health 2 times more often than did older persons who were satisfied with the support available to them (odds ratio [OR]=2.4; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.7, 3.4; P

Suggested Citation

  • White, A.M. & Philogene, G.S. & Fine, L. & Sinha, S., 2009. "Social support and self-reported health status of older adults in the United States," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(10), pages 1872-1878.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2008.146894_8
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.146894
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    Cited by:

    1. Cheng, Cheng, 2017. "Anticipated support from children and later-life health in the United States and China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 201-209.
    2. Kimberly A. Rapoza & Kemesha Vassell & Denise T. Wilson & Thomas W. Robertson & Dana J. Manzella & Alberto Luis Ortiz-Garcia & Lorielle A. Jimenez-Lazar, 2016. "Attachment as a Moderating Factor Between Social Support, Physical Health, and Psychological Symptoms," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(4), pages 21582440166, December.
    3. Anupam Joya Sharma & Malavika A Subramanyam, 2020. "Psychological wellbeing of middle-aged and older queer men in India: A mixed-methods approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-25, March.
    4. Daphne C. Hernandez & Sajeevika S. Daundasekara & Michael J. Zvolensky & Lorraine R. Reitzel & Diane Santa Maria & Adam C. Alexander & Darla E. Kendzor & Michael S. Businelle, 2020. "Urban Stress Indirectly Influences Psychological Symptoms through Its Association with Distress Tolerance and Perceived Social Support among Adults Experiencing Homelessness," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-15, July.
    5. Heather Booth & Pilar Rioseco & Heather Crawford, 2014. "What can reverse causation tell us about demographic differences in the social network and social support determinants of self-rated health in later life?," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 12(1), pages 23-52.
    6. Laure Sabatier & Spencer Moore, 2015. "Do Our Friends and Relatives Help Us Better Assess Our Health? Examining the Role of Social Networks in the Correspondence Between Self-Rated Health and Having Metabolic Syndrome," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(3), pages 21582440156, September.
    7. Gale, Nicola K. & Kenyon, Sara & MacArthur, Christine & Jolly, Kate & Hope, Lucy, 2018. "Synthetic social support: Theorizing lay health worker interventions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 96-105.
    8. Morey, Brittany N. & Valencia, Connie & Park, Hye Won & Lee, Sunmin, 2021. "The central role of social support in the health of Chinese and Korean American immigrants," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    9. Jerf W. K. Yeung, 2018. "Religion, Volunteerism and Health: Are Religious People Really Doing Well by Doing Good?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(2), pages 809-828, July.
    10. Jin You & Helene Fung & Peter Vitaliano, 2020. "The pattern of social support seeking and its socio-demographic variations among older adults in China," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 341-348, September.
    11. Liu, Yiwei & Duan, Yanan & Xu, Ling, 2020. "Volunteer service and positive attitudes toward aging among Chinese older adults: The mediating role of health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    12. Robert Gajda & Marzena Jeżewska-Zychowicz, 2021. "The importance of social financial support in reducing food insecurity among elderly people," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(3), pages 717-727, June.
    13. Margie E Lachman & Stefan Agrigoroaei, 2010. "Promoting Functional Health in Midlife and Old Age: Long-Term Protective Effects of Control Beliefs, Social Support, and Physical Exercise," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(10), pages 1-9, October.

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