Relationships may protect older women against earlier death
By Becky Ham, Staff Writer
Health Behavior News Service
The study of women age 65 and older suggests that those with larger social networks, measured by how many people they know and how frequently they interact with them, have less of a risk of dying at a certain age than those with smaller social networks.
However, “most — though not all — of the benefits of social networks in this sample seemed attributable to marriage,” according to Thomas Rutledge, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh and colleagues.
“Both marriage and larger social networks may provide a protective effect on their own, whereas the combination of the two seems to be most beneficial,” Rutledge says, noting that married women who are more social may live at least one to two years longer than more isolated women.
The risk of dying at a certain age decreases as the size of the social network increases, according to the researchers.
Large social networks significantly reduced the women’s overall risk of earlier death even when other factors, such as medical conditions like diabetes, body weight and high blood pressure were taken into account.
Individual indicators of social networks, such as whether anyone helped the women with cooking, cleaning or shopping, as well as whether the women had anyone to talk with about important decisions, are among the strongest “protectors” identified by Rutledge and colleagues.
The researchers say that more work needs to be done to discover why social networks have such a protective effect.
“Social network effects are not simply a proxy for pre-existing physical health, socioeconomic status or psychological well-being. However, the suggestion of a causal link between social networks and health is equally unproven,” Rutledge says.
Of the 7,524 women participating in the study, 1,451 had died at the time of the study’s follow-up phase, six years after completing surveys about their relationships and social lives.
The study was supported by the U.S. Public Health Service.
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