IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v44y1997i10p1503-1517.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beyond single indicators of social networks: A LISREL analysis of social ties among the elderly

Author

Listed:
  • Glass, Thomas A.
  • de Leon, Carlos F. Mendes
  • Seeman, Teresa E.
  • Berkman, Lisa F.

Abstract

While the health promoting influences of social networks have been shown in a number of studies, little attention has been paid to measurement issues within the field of epidemiology. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new set of measures of social networks for use in epidemiological research on the elderly. We use confirmatory factor analysis to test a multidimensional model of social networks using data from a large epidemiologic study of community-dwelling adults age 65 and over (U.S.A.). Confirmatory factor analysis conducted using LISREL showed that our model provides a good fit to the data after several adjustments for correlated measurement error were introduced. Based on this analysis, we developed new measures of four dimensions and a summary index of social networks. Bivariate relationships between our new measures and several sociodemographic variables of interest are also presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Glass, Thomas A. & de Leon, Carlos F. Mendes & Seeman, Teresa E. & Berkman, Lisa F., 1997. "Beyond single indicators of social networks: A LISREL analysis of social ties among the elderly," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1503-1517, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:44:y:1997:i:10:p:1503-1517
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(96)00270-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ellwardt, Lea & Van Tilburg, Theo G. & Aartsen, Marja J., 2015. "The mix matters: Complex personal networks relate to higher cognitive functioning in old age," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 107-115.
    2. Bennett, Rachel & Chepngeno-Langat, Gloria & Evandrou, Maria & Falkingham, Jane, 2015. "Resilience in the face of post-election violence in Kenya: The mediating role of social networks on wellbeing among older people in the Korogocho informal settlement, Nairobi," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 159-167.
    3. Carole Roan Gresenz & Jeannette Rogowski & José J. Escarce, 2007. "Social Networks and Access to Health Care Among Mexican-Americans," NBER Working Papers 13460, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Angelique Chan & Prassanna Raman & Stefan Ma & Rahul Malhotra, 2015. "Loneliness and all-cause mortality in community-dwelling elderly Singaporeans," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(49), pages 1361-1382.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:44:y:1997:i:10:p:1503-1517. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.