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In a Lonely Place: Investigating Regional Differences in Loneliness
Abstract
Loneliness has traditionally been studied on the individual level. This study is one of the first to systematically describe and explain differences in loneliness on a fine-grained regional level. Using data from the nationally representative German Socio-Economic Panel Study ( N = 17,602), we mapped the regional distribution of loneliness across Germany and examined whether regional differences in loneliness can be explained by both individual and regional characteristics. Perceived neighborhood relation, perceived distance to public parks and sport/leisure facilities as well as objective regional remoteness and population change were positively related to loneliness. Individual-level characteristics, however, appeared to be more important in explaining variance in loneliness. In sum, loneliness varies across geographical regions, and these differences can partly be linked to characteristics of these regions. Our results may aid governments and public health care services to identify geographical areas most at risk of loneliness and the resulting physical and mental health issues.
... However, it is not completely clear how the authors defined or measured mobility, and therefore no conclusion can be formed. On the other hand, walking distance to public transport has no association to loneliness (Buecker et al., 2021), but the convenience of public transport shows a negative effect (Mao et al., 2022), meaning that if people are satisfied with the convenience of public transport, they feel less lonely. ...
... Although one study found no association between social cohesion and loneliness (Weijs-Perrée et al., 2015), it is generally accepted that loneliness decreases as social cohesiveness increases. This is also consistent with the findings by Buecker et al. (2021) and Bower et al. (2021) who conclude that people who have good relationships with their neighbors and feel like they belong to a neighborhood experience fewer feelings of loneliness. ...
... Buecker et al., 2021;Domènech-Abella et al., 2021;Kemperman et al., 2019;Van den Berg et al., 2016), while loneliness is positively associated with the distance to the highway and sports/leisure facilities(Buecker et al., 2021;Van den Berg et al., 2016). Thus, as the distance to the highway and access to sports/leisure facilities increases, so do the feelings of loneliness. ...
... Objective and perceived neighborhood characteristics capture different aspects of how individuals experience their neighborhoods and each may contribute to health via different mechanisms, such as through behaviors, psychological stress, and social relationships [46]. Recent research demonstrates that greater availability and accessibility of services in the neighborhood has been linked to lower levels of loneliness [47][48][49][50], while higher rates of crime have been associated with more loneliness [51]. Some research demonstrates perceived neighborhood characteristics are linked to both physical and mental health among adults [46,52,53], with other research indicating that subjective neighborhood measures were more strongly tied to self-rated health than objective neighborhood factors [54]. ...
... Higher levels of perceived neighborhood disorder, particularly fear of crime or greater vandalism, among older adults may hinder their likelihood of spending time outdoors and engaging in social interactions with their neighbors, which can adversely affect their mental and physical health [16,57]. Low perceived neighborhood social cohesion, which includes older adults' ability to build social connections with neighbors and receive social support [58], may increase older adults' feelings of being disconnected from their neighbors and subsequently lead to increased loneliness [47,48,50,59]. Moreover, Black and Hispanic/ Latinx older adults are more likely to hold negative perceptions of their neighborhoods, specifically physical disorder and social cohesion, compared to White older adults [60,61]. ...
... Our findings align with previous research indicating that having positive relationships with neighbors protected against loneliness [48]. For older adults, neighborhood social cohesion may be particularly salient for loneliness due to older adults potentially having to rely on their neighbors for support and assistance with daily tasks, especially if family members are not close by. ...
Background
Loneliness is a public health epidemic in the United States (US), with older adults being vulnerable to experiencing loneliness. Predictors of loneliness are less understood among racial/ethnic groups of US older adults, and few studies have included perceived institutional discrimination (PID), stressful life events (SLE), and perceived neighborhood characteristics (PNC) as antecedent stressors of loneliness in diverse older adult samples. Our study assessed the relationship between these stressors and loneliness among specific racial/ethnic groups of older adults.
Methods
We used the Health and Retirement Study data (n = 9,904) to examine whether PID, SLE, and PNC were associated with loneliness. Loneliness was measured using the 11-item UCLA Loneliness Scale. PID included unfairly not hired for a job, unfairly prevented from moving into a neighborhood, and unfairly treated by the police. SLE included moving to a worse neighborhood/residence, being robbed or burglarized, and unemployed/looking for a job. PNC were measured as discohesion and disorder. Lagged multivariate linear regression models regressed loneliness (2014/2016 HRS waves) on PID, SLE and PNC (2010/2012 HRS waves) measured as cumulative totals and individual items. Models were stratified by Black (BOAs), Hispanic/Latinx (HOAs), and White (WOAs) older adults.
Results
Cumulative totals of PID, SLE, and neighborhood discohesion were associated with loneliness among BOAs while only discohesion was associated with loneliness among HOAs. Cumulative totals for PID, SLE, and PNC were associated with loneliness among WOAs. Individual stressors predicting loneliness for BOAs were moving to a worse residence and being robbed/burglarized. For HOAs, being prevented from moving to a neighborhood was associated with greater loneliness while being robbed/burglarized was associated with less loneliness. Individual stressors predicting greater loneliness for WOAs were being unfairly not hired for a job, receiving unfair treatment during police encounters, and moving to a worse residence.
Conclusions
Our study finds racial/ethnic variation in psychosocial stressors predicting loneliness four years later. Nevertheless, neighborhood discohesion was the most salient stressor and was associated with greater loneliness across all racial/ethnic groups. Future research and interventions should consider the differing stress appraisal processes across groups and to support the development of resources and policies to ameliorate loneliness among diverse older adults.
... Not surprisingly, much research on loneliness has investigated characteristics and structural components of the person's social relationships and network as predictors of feeling lonely. Whereas a positive marital relationship was protective against loneliness (Hawkley et al., 2008), singles were vulnerable for high levels of loneliness (Buecker et al., 2020). Living alone was linked to loneliness in several studies (e.g. . ...
... Living alone was linked to loneliness in several studies (e.g. . However, there was no difference in loneliness among people living with their partner compared to those who had a partner but did not share a household (Buecker et al., 2020). Further, the relationship between loneliness, gender, and living alone seems to be complex as the effects of living without a partner were 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 particularly strong for young women and middle-aged men . ...
... Further, the relationship between loneliness, gender, and living alone seems to be complex as the effects of living without a partner were 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 particularly strong for young women and middle-aged men . Apart from relationship status, the quantity of social contact with friends and relatives decreased with a higher degree of loneliness (Buecker et al., 2020). ...
... 8), loneliness involves a three-place reflective relation on part of the lonely person (Seemann 2022). More precisely, in loneliness, a person takes an evaluative stance on his/her own engaging in social relationships to the effect that they are judged insufficient as compared with his/her own ideas and desires (Ingram et al. 2020a;Buecker et al. 2021). Regarded as a self-evaluative attitude, loneliness turns out not only as an intrinsically social, but also as a complex normative phenomenon (Schmid 2011). ...
... Being neither reducible to individual experiences nor to facts holding about an individual, loneliness presents an interactional phenomenon. Lonelines arises from a person's becoming aware that his/her attempts to establish or enter particular social relationships and contexts fail (Buecker et al. 2021), whilst continuing to endorse the desire to succeed in doing so. Analytically, such awareness entails a three-place, reflective relation: a subject takes an evaluative stance on his/her engaging in social relationships (Seemann 2022). ...
... Those who are taking this step can be expected to be more susceptible for experiencing loneliness in an existentially threatening dimension (Flanagan 2019;Ingram et al. 2020a). Such looping effects between alcohol dependence and loneliness can be reinforced by an environment which is likely to produce loneliness by impeding the development of stable social relationships and/or engaging in meaningful individual activities and social interaction (Alexander 2019;Buecker et al. 2021). Especially under living conditions involving frequently changing one's work or place or breaking with close relationships, habits and practices of drinking alcohol might provide for the continuity and stability of one's everyday life which otherwise cannot be accounted for (Alexander 2019). ...
I develop an externalist perspective and analysis of the relatedness of loneliness and (harmful) alcohol use and the concept of loneliness. I depart from twenty qualitative interviews with people undergoing inpatient treatment for alcohol dependence. Both, loneliness and its relatedness to alocohol dependence turn out to be complex relational and interactional phenomena whose occurrence and dynamics depend on the social and situational conditions under which they arise. Despite huge variations in interviewees’ experiences of loneliness, they share a common phenomenological and analytical structure. Loneliness arises when instances of social interaction fail to arrive at mutual understanding within a certain social context. Loneliness is neither reducible to individual experiences nor to distinctive characteristics of a person. Rather, it presents an evaluative and interactional phenomenon, a person’s awareness of his/her failure to establish mutual understanding with others in social interaction. The relatedness of alcohol dependence and loneliness is neither conceptual nor causal nor explainable by facts about the individuals concerned, but depends on the kind of loneliness involved and the function habitual ways of drinking alcohol have in a person’s everyday life and social environment.
... European studies looking at how migration background affects loneliness find a prevalently positive relationship; in other words, that migrants of all ages report higher levels of loneliness compared to native populations (e.g., Bayat et al., 2021;Buecker et al., 2021b;Franssen et al., 2020;Hysing et al., 2020;Niedzwiedz et al., 2016;Pagan, 2020), with some exceptions (Hutten et al., 2022;Marquez et al., 2022;Pan et al., 2023). However, in some studies this is true only unless other loneliness risk factors are taken into account, in which case the relationship flips sign (Fokkema and Naderi, 2013;ten Kate et al., 2020;Visser and El Fakiri, 2016). ...
... Adverse conditions in childhood may even impact loneliness later in life (Guthmuller, 2022;Nicolaisen and Thorsen, 2014b). Conflicts in personal relations in general are strongly linked to feelings of loneliness (Tonković et al., 2021), while good relationships, for instance with neighbours, seem to protect from loneliness (Buecker et al., 2021b) and so does getting social or emotional support from one's social network (Dahlberg et al., 2018;Hawkley and Kocherginsky, 2018;Krause, 2016;Rote et al., 2013). Similar associations between social and emotional support and loneliness have been found for both adolescents (Mahon et al., 2006;Yang et al., 2020) and older adults (especially if the support comes from family members) (Cohen-Mansfield et al., 2016;Dahlberg et al., 2018;de Jong Gierveld et al., 2009;Hawkley and Kocherginsky, 2018). ...
... A better availability and accessibility of facilities in the neighbourhood (in terms of e.g., services, social sites, or leisure-time facilities) are mostly linked to lower levels of loneliness (Bower et al., 2023;Buecker et al., 2021b;Lyu and Forsyth, 2021), and the same holds for access to green spaces, even if the link is not always statistically significant (Astell-Burt et al., 2022;Bower et al., 2023;Buecker et al., 2021b;Lyu and Forsyth, 2021). A better walkability of the neighbourhood (especially when measured subjectively) is also mostly linked to less loneliness in older adults, but again, sometimes without a statistically significant link (Lyu and Forsyth, 2021). ...
Rationale:
Increasingly, loneliness is being recognised as a serious problem with detrimental effects on health, as well as on social cohesion and community trust. To effectively tackle this complex issue, a clear understanding of the phenomenon and its main drivers is needed. Over years of scientific research on loneliness, many potential risk factors have emerged and been tested empirically.
Objective:
This narrative review of 109 studies provides a concise summary of empirical evidence on the main potential risk factors for loneliness and presents an additional section dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Method:
Given the very large number of existing studies, emphasis is placed on recent meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews as well as longitudinal studies. Similarly, given the large number of possible risk factors for loneliness, which may differ based on the geographical and cultural context, this review focuses on studies from Europe and North America.
Results:
The results show that demographic factors often correlate with loneliness, but in many cases the link becomes negligible when controlling for other factors. Often, physical and mental health problems are found to be associated with loneliness, and so are some psychological factors, such as neuroticism or extroversion. Loneliness also depends on the environment in which one lives, and possibly the broader socio-economic and socio-cultural contexts. Nevertheless, the review shows that ultimately everything comes down to the quantity and quality of social relationships. In particular, marital status, living arrangements and the characteristics of one's personal social network are quite consistently found to be among the strongest predictors of loneliness. These main findings about the risk factors for loneliness remained valid also during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Policy implications:
The findings of this review have implications for policy, as understanding who the most vulnerable groups are is key for designing targeted policy solutions that tackle loneliness.
... Geographical variation in loneliness can also be found within countries [129][130][131][132][133][134] . In a study using a representative German sample, there was a difference greater than two standard deviations between the regions with the highest and lowest loneliness levels 131 . ...
... Geographical variation in loneliness can also be found within countries [129][130][131][132][133][134] . In a study using a representative German sample, there was a difference greater than two standard deviations between the regions with the highest and lowest loneliness levels 131 . In another study examining a representative sample of young people (aged 16-24 years) in the UK, geographical region accounted for 5-8% of the total variance in loneliness 132 . ...
... Empirical studies directly examining this link on a within-country level provide mixed results. Some studies find that loneliness levels are elevated in areas with a greater percentage of older low-income adults 134 and in socioeconomically deprived areas 135 , but these associations do not hold up in other studies 131,136 , suggesting that the effect of the sociodemographic composition of the population on loneliness might depend on other factors to be identified in future research. A group of macro-level factors unique to within-country studies comprises physical characteristics of places, such as the distinction between urban and rural areas. ...
People feel lonely when their social needs are not met by the quantity and quality of their social relationships. Most research has focused on individual-level predictors of loneliness. However, macro-level factors related to historical time and geographic space might influence loneliness through their effects on individual-level predictors. In this Review, we summarize empirical findings on differences in the prevalence of loneliness across historical time and geographical space and discuss four groups of macro-level factors that might account for these differences: values and norms, family and social lives, technology and digitalization, and living conditions and availability of individual resources. Regarding historical time, media reports convey that loneliness is on the rise, but the empirical evidence is mixed, at least before the COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding geographical space, national differences in loneliness are linked to differences in cultural values (such as individualism) but might also be due to differences in the sociodemographic composition of the population. Research on within-country differences in loneliness is scarce but suggests an influence of neighbourhood characteristics. We conclude that a more nuanced understanding of the effects of macro-level factors on loneliness is necessary because of their relevance for public policy and propose specific directions for future research. People feel lonely when their social needs are not met, which can lead to long-term health issues. In this Review, Luhmann et al. summarize empirical findings on differences in the prevalence of loneliness across time and space and consider macro-level factors that might account for these differences.
... Individual characteristics play a significant role in explaining the variations in loneliness [2]. Social connection is a critical factor influencing mental and physical health, and its importance has grown in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic [3][4][5]. A meta-analysis of studies examining the effects of loneliness, social isolation, or living alone on mortality found that both subjective and objective measures of social isolation significantly influence the risk of mortality, comparable to well-established risk factors such as smoking or obesity [6]. ...
... Encircle one. (Number of respondents:3,369) a. Want to continue living here (61.4%) b. Want to move but have to stay(7.3%) ...
Objective: This study aimed to investigate the association between loneliness and utilization of medical institutions and pharmacies in urban areas of Japan.
Methods: A 52-item survey was distributed to 10,000 residents, aged 15-64 years, in Nakano Ward, Tokyo, Japan. The survey included a three-item version of the UCLA Loneliness Scale, as well as questions on demographic, socioeconomic, and educational background, medical institution and pharmacy use, and community activities.
Results: Of the 3,369 survey respondents, 379 answered “Always feel that way” to at least one of the three items on the loneliness scale. Participants who felt lonely were significantly more likely to be men (p < 0.001), economically disadvantaged (p < 0.001), and perceived their health status as poor (p < 0.001). Loneliness was associated with a significantly lower self-reported frequency of medical institution use (p = 0.003) and pharmacy use (p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Loneliness was associated with male gender, economic disadvantage, poorer perceived health status, and lower self-reported frequency of medical institution and pharmacy use. These findings suggest the existence of barriers preventing lonely people from accessing necessary medical and pharmacy services. Further research is needed to explore these barriers in greater detail.
... Specifically, the CCO scores for each municipality i were calculated based on CCO scores of households residing in municipality i as well as households in all municipalities j (j ≠ i) by considering spatial weights such that geographically proximate households receive higher weights than distant ones. For geographically weighting responses, we calculated the distance between all 4667 × 4667 German municipalities and transformed the geographic distance into spatial weights using a log-logistic distance-decay function following previous research [64][65][66][67] (see Methods for details). ...
... In our case, r depends on the assumed reach of spatial interaction between households residing in distinct municipalities. Existing approaches [64][65][66] define spatial interactions based on commuting flows and determine r as the maximum distance people are willing to commute between regions as an indicator of spatial interaction. Besides the assumed spatial reach of interactions, r is also restricted by the volume of information that flows into the spatial smoothing function. ...
How and why climate change opinions vary within countries at a small geographic scale is rarely investigated. Previous research has focused on public opinions at the individual or national level, leaving local differences within countries and their underlying factors largely unexplored. The lack of research at subnational levels is problematic, as adaptation and mitigation policies depend on collective support and action involving multiple stakeholders at the local scale. It is thus crucial to identify geographic differences in climate change opinions and to unravel their determinants at a fine-grained local scale. We examine public CCOs across 4,667 municipalities in Germany by relying on a representative survey of households. Here we show substantial and systematic differences in public climate change opinions across locations that manifest between urban vs. rural and prospering vs. declining areas. Besides these geographic features, more complex historical and cultural differences between places play an important role.
... Geographical differences in loneliness and social isolation can also be found within countries (Beer et al., 2016;Menec et al., 2019;and Buecker et al., 2021). For example, a study examining geographical differences in Germany found that loneliness levels were higher in more remote regions, in regions with a higher population fluctuation, and in regions with longer distances to public parks and leisure activities (Buecker et al., 2021). ...
... Geographical differences in loneliness and social isolation can also be found within countries (Beer et al., 2016;Menec et al., 2019;and Buecker et al., 2021). For example, a study examining geographical differences in Germany found that loneliness levels were higher in more remote regions, in regions with a higher population fluctuation, and in regions with longer distances to public parks and leisure activities (Buecker et al., 2021). Interestingly, no systematic differences between rural and urban regions were found in this study. ...
... Es muss zwischen Faktoren, die einen unmittelbaren Effekt auf die Entstehung von Einsamkeit haben (proximale Faktoren), sowie Faktoren, die Einsamkeit auf indirekte Weise begünstigen können (distale Faktoren), unterschieden werden (Luhmann 2021). Zu den proximalen Faktoren zählen beispielsweise besondere Lebensereignisse wie der Verlust einer nahestehenden Person oder auch ein objektiv betrachteter schlechter Gesundheitszustand, beispielsweise aufgrund einer chronischen Erkrankung. ...
... Es können sich Gedankenmuster und Verhaltensweisen verfestigen, welche die Einsamkeit in der Folge weiter verstärken können (Cacioppo und Hawkley 2009): Einsame Menschen nehmen alltägliche soziale Begegnungen und Interaktionen häufiger als bedrohlich wahr und interpretieren diese negativer als nicht einsame Menschen. Daraus resultiert oft ein eher negatives, feindseligeres oder distanziertes Verhalten, worauf wiederum das Umfeld des einsamen Menschen mit Abwendung und Distanzierung reagiert(Luhmann 2021). Die Einsamkeit der betroffenen Menschen verstärkt sich durch diesen Interaktionsprozess.Einsamkeit -Einblicke in Theorie und Praxis. ...
English:
The publication addresses civil society actors as well as practitioners and committed people working on the topic of loneliness. it presents a differentiated and comprehensive view of loneliness to helpt the sensitization and education of social practictioners that tackle loneliness.
German:
Die Publikation adressiert dementsprechend zivilgesellschaftliche Akteur*innen sowie Praktiker*innen und Engagierte, die zum Thema Einsamkeit arbeiten. Als Quellen dienen im Besonderen die KNE Expertisen, das KNE Theorie- und Praxisaustauschformat der KNE Salons sowie Erkenntnisse aus der eigenen praxisorientierten Forschung. Auf Grundlage eines differenzierten und umfassenden Blicks auf Einsamkeit leistet das KNE diesbezüglich einen Beitrag zur Sensibilisierung und Aufklärung.
... et al., 2021), living alone (Beutel et al., 2017), lower income (rather than lower educational attainment) (Buecker et al., 2020a), and being single (Buecker et al., 2020a;Hawkley et al., 2008) matched previous findings from population-based samples well, this study suggests that the level of personality functioning is a more powerful explanatory variable of the subjective feeling of loneliness than sociodemographic and other external circumstances. The results of the mediation model yielded a more differentiated view of the interplay of personality functioning and loneliness with current depression and anxiety symptoms, showing that the direct effect of personality functioning on distress levels was larger than the indirect effect that was mediated by loneliness. ...
... et al., 2021), living alone (Beutel et al., 2017), lower income (rather than lower educational attainment) (Buecker et al., 2020a), and being single (Buecker et al., 2020a;Hawkley et al., 2008) matched previous findings from population-based samples well, this study suggests that the level of personality functioning is a more powerful explanatory variable of the subjective feeling of loneliness than sociodemographic and other external circumstances. The results of the mediation model yielded a more differentiated view of the interplay of personality functioning and loneliness with current depression and anxiety symptoms, showing that the direct effect of personality functioning on distress levels was larger than the indirect effect that was mediated by loneliness. ...
Background: Loneliness is a major public health issue and the identification of risk factors is crucial for prevention and intervention. While previous research has often investigated sociodemographic and external factors (e.g., living situation), personality variables received less attention. This study aimed to harness recent advances in the dimensional assessment of personality pathology to expand knowledge about psychological determinants of loneliness in the population. Methods: We surveyed a sample representative of the German population concerning age, gender, and level of education (N = 2412) using measures of loneliness (UCLA 3-item loneliness scale), personality functioning (12-item version of the OPD-Structure Questionnaire OPD-SQS), and mental distress (PHQ-4). We explored the relevance of personality functioning for loneliness in a multivariate linear regression analysis and in a theoretically-based path model in which we tested loneliness as the mediator between personality functioning and mental distress. Results: In the regression analysis, personality functioning showed strong associations with loneliness (β = 0.48, p < .001) (within a model that included gender, age, living situation, income, education, and partnership). The mediation model fit the data well and loneliness mediated 39.9% of the total effect of personality functioning on distress. Limitations: The present findings are based on cross-sectional survey data. Conclusions: This study gives insight into previously understudied individual differences shaping feelings of loneliness and mental health outcomes. It suggests that deficits in personality functioning independently aggravate the risk of experiencing loneliness, hence the conception of risk factors for loneliness should be expanded to include personality variables.
... Cities by definition have a higher concentration of genetically unrelated people and may make lonelinessthe feeling of unwanted isolation -particularly salient. At the same time, there is mixed evidence of regional and cultural differences in loneliness [2][3][4]. Effects at the neighbourhood level such as having access to public parks or other green spaces may decrease feelings of loneliness [5 && ]. Although there is clearly a role of macro-level factors, including level of urbanization, the current evidence suggests that individual factors are crucial for understanding loneliness [2]. ...
... Effects at the neighbourhood level such as having access to public parks or other green spaces may decrease feelings of loneliness [5 && ]. Although there is clearly a role of macro-level factors, including level of urbanization, the current evidence suggests that individual factors are crucial for understanding loneliness [2]. These subjective experiences of an unfulfilled need for social contact in turn negatively impact mental health and increase mortality rates [6,7]. ...
Purpose of review:
Loneliness is a state of distress or discomfort between the desired and experienced level of connectedness to others. These feelings may be particular salient in urban environments that seemingly offer more opportunities for social contact, highlighting the discrepancy. The topic of loneliness has received increased attention because of its negative impact on mental and physical health combined with concerns of increased loneliness due to lockdowns and social distancing regulations during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. We provide a bibliometric and random-effects meta-analysis of clinical trials published since 2020 and available via PubMed.
Recent findings:
Loneliness interventions have predominantly focused on elderly in the community. Adolescents and young adults as a second group at risk have received much less attention. On average across 44 effect sizes studied in 38 trials, interventions show moderate levels of effectiveness but are characterized by high heterogeneity and trials are often underpowered and use low quality designs. Multidimensional interventions show promise for alleviating loneliness, but the intervention context needs greater attention.
Summary:
Scalable and effective interventions for the general population and at-risk groups of loneliness are still scarce. Some promising interventions have been trialled and merit further attention.
... This study also affirms this finding. Our data present such linguistic categories, which have been proven by previous research to be associated with the linguistic nature of loneliness [31]. ...
Background
Loneliness is a global public health issue contributing to a variety of mental and physical health issues. It increases the risk of life-threatening conditions and contributes to the burden on the economy in terms of the number of productive days lost. Loneliness is a highly varied concept, which is associated with multiple factors.
Objective
This study aimed to understand loneliness through a comparative analysis of loneliness data on Twitter and Reddit, which are popular social media platforms. These platforms differ in terms of their use, as Twitter allows only short posts, while Reddit allows long posts in a forum setting.
Methods
We collected global data on loneliness in October 2022. Twitter posts containing the words “lonely,” “loneliness,” “alone,” “solitude,” and “isolation” were collected. Reddit posts were extracted in March 2023. Using natural language processing techniques (valence aware dictionary for sentiment reasoning [VADER] tool from the natural language toolkit [NLTK]), the study identified and extracted relevant keywords and phrases related to loneliness from user-generated content on both platforms. The study used both sentiment analysis and the number of occurrences of a topic. Quantitative analysis was performed to determine the number of occurrences of a topic in tweets and posts, and overall meaningful topics were reported under a category.
Results
The extracted data were subjected to comparative analysis to identify common themes and trends related to loneliness across Twitter and Reddit. A total of 100,000 collected tweets and 10,000 unique Reddit posts, including comments, were analyzed. The results of the study revealed the relationships of various social, political, and personal-emotional themes with the expression of loneliness on social media. Both platforms showed similar patterns in terms of themes and categories of discussion in conjunction with loneliness-related content. Both Reddit and Twitter addressed loneliness, but they differed in terms of focus. Reddit discussions were predominantly centered on personal-emotional themes, with a higher occurrence of these topics. Twitter, while still emphasizing personal-emotional themes, included a broader range of categories. Both platforms aligned with psychological linguistic features related to the self-expression of mental health issues. The key difference was in the range of topics, with Twitter having a wider variety of topics and Reddit having more focus on personal-emotional aspects.
Conclusions
Reddit posts provide detailed insights into data about the expression of loneliness, although at the cost of the diversity of themes and categories, which can be inferred from the data. These insights can guide future research using social media data to understand loneliness. The findings provide the basis for further comparative investigation of the expression of loneliness on different social media platforms and online platforms.
... Zudem ist es denkbar, dass Menschen mit geringem Einkommen häufiger in Regionen mit schlechterer Infrastruktur leben. In Deutschland weisen vor allem Orte mit hoher Bevölkerungsfluktuation sowie Orte mit größerer Distanz zum nächsten Oberzentrum ( = Orte mit einem größeren Infrastruktur-und Dienstleistungsangebot) ein höheres Einsamkeitsrisiko auf (Bückner, Ebert, Götz, & Entringer, 2020). Ein weiterer Risikofaktor betrifft ältere Menschen in Pflegeheimen. ...
... Two longitudinal studies in Australia also suggested that urban greening and tree canopy are associated with lower risks of loneliness (Astell-Burt, Hartig, Eckermann et al., 2022;Astell-Burt, Walsan et al., 2023). A cross-sectional study in Germany found that living near public parks was associated with less loneliness (Buecker et al., 2021). Another cross-sectional study in eight higher-income countries found that greater walking times to nearby green spaces were associated with a higher level of loneliness (van Houwelingen-Snippe et al., 2020). ...
Loneliness may contribute to chronic diseases, while neighbourhood green space is increasingly understood to benefit health. However, whether green space is associated with loneliness is less understood, especially for an ageing population. This study aims to explore the relationship between different measures of green space and loneliness among middle-aged and older adults (N = 8383) based on a national cohort. Loneliness was measured with a yes-or-no (binary) self-reported question, while the availability of residential green space was assessed with the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) and proportion of neighbourhood public parks. Multilevel logistic regression models, stratified and mediation analysis were used to test whether green space availability was associated with loneliness. The results showed that both forms of residential green space were negatively associated with the risk of loneliness, even after adjustments for covariates. These associations were partially mediated by social cohesion and modified by socioeconomic status and age; residents who were males, at least 60 years old, had lower incomes, or had no high school degree showed protective associations of residential green space on loneliness in some stratified models. These findings indicate that residential green space plays an important role in loneliness risk reduction in middle-aged and older adults, so policymakers can consider urban greening as part of their comprehensive plans to support the mental health of ageing adults.
... Similar differences were recently observed for loneliness, a well-established risk factor for suicidal thoughts as well as behaviors (McClelland et al., 2020) and a construct with conceptually close relations to anomie. Self-reported feelings of loneliness showed a substantial geographical gradient with above-average values in all of Eastern Germany and the highest values in the North-East (Buecker et al., 2020). Differences between East and West Germany also relate to further risk and protective implicated in STBs, such as wealth and income (e.g., Kasinger et al., 2022), family structure and cohesion (Raab, 2017), or the work biography of men and women (Struffolino et al., 2016). ...
... Until recently, theoretical frameworks for understanding loneliness have been limited to the evolutionary theory of loneliness (Cacioppo et al., 2006) and the socio-ecological model (e.g., Buecker et al., 2021). These two frameworks, however, did not focus on cultural specificity and variation across the lifespan. ...
... [1][2][3] Interacting with nature can reduce feelings of loneliness, boost connectedness, and enhance feelings of social support. [4][5][6] These findings indicate that when people feel more related to nature, they feel more connected to the world at large. 7 However, for older adults, real-life nature interaction is often troublesome because of physical vulnerabilities (e.g., fear of falling), related mobility constraints 8,9 or because nature is simply not around in urbanized regions. ...
Objective
Loneliness and social isolation are pressing issues that can seriously impact the mental health and well-being of older adults. Interacting with nature can stimulate a feeling of connectedness. However, for older adults, access to nature is often troublesome because of physical limitations and mobility restrictions.
Methods
In the present mixed-method study, 37 older adults (62–99 years old) with varying care needs and mobility restrictions watched a video presenting a walkthrough of a simulated digital nature landscape.
Results
Quantitative results show a significant increase in social connectedness scores and enhanced peacefulness after experiencing a digital nature. Qualitative results stress the importance of variations in nature scenery and highlight the influence of contextual and person-related factors including nature experiences throughout the life span and mobility constraints that older adults may face.
Conclusion
These findings testify to the potential of using digital nature as a complementary strategy when interactions with outdoor nature become increasingly difficult due to old age.
... Wealth difference between East and West Germans has increased over time and negatively impacted the general life satisfaction of East Germans [33]. Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, self-reported loneliness was higher in eastern German states than western states [34]. Cordes et al. [10] found that lower scores in perceived social support are more common among East Germans than West Germans. ...
Background
Mental resources such as optimism and social support are important to face different stressors. The aim of this study is to identify groups in the population that are similar in terms of their mental resources.
Methods
For this purpose, a randomly selected general population community sample was used, representative for the city of Leipzig, Germany. In a two-stage process, three clusters were identified using hierarchical cluster analysis and the K-means method and then tested with a multinomial logistic regression analysis for differences in sociodemographic characteristics.
Results
Three clusters were identified which vary in their extent of social support and optimism. In distinguishing between those with higher and lower (medium or poor) mental resources, male gender, unemployment, being born abroad and low household income are risk factors for having fewer mental resources. Internal migrants from West Germany and persons with children at home have a higher chance of being in the type with good mental resources. The groups with medium and lower mental resources differ significantly only by variables living with a partner and employment.
Conclusion
Our results indicate that good mental resources are associated with good mental health. Special mental health care programs, focusing in particular on the needs of vulnerable groups with poor mental resources within a society, should be implemented.
... 41 Our findings also show that neighbourhood social cohesion, assessed in terms of safety, trust and support in neighbours, is just as important among school-aged youth in mitigating loneliness as for adults. 39,42,43 That finding offers some suggestions for intervention, although we must be mindful that the community context, expressed by high overall social cohesion, has been shown, among adults at least, to benefit people from dominant social groups and those who can exploit local social capital (e.g. by having the resources and ability to join local groups). On the other hand, members of marginalized groups often have limited resources to take up such opportunities or are actively excluded from them. ...
Background:
Loneliness is a growing public health concern, but little is known about how place affects loneliness, especially during adolescence. This is the first study to examine the influence of neighbourhoods on loneliness in early-to-mid adolescence.
Methods:
Baseline data from the #BeeWell cohort study in Greater Manchester (England), including 36 141 adolescents (aged 12-15 years) across 1590 neighbourhoods, were linked to neighbourhood characteristics using administrative data at the level of lower super output areas and analysed using multilevel regression.
Results:
Neighbourhood differences explained 1.18% of the variation in loneliness. Ethnic, gender and sexual orientation inequalities in loneliness varied across neighbourhoods. Several neighbourhood characteristics predicted loneliness at the individual level, including skills deprivation among children and young people, lower population density and perceptions of the local area (feeling safe; trust in local people; feeling supported by local people; seeing neighbours as helpful; the availability of good places to spend free time). Finally, a longer distance from home to school was associated with significantly higher loneliness.
Conclusions:
Neighbourhoods account for a small but significant proportion of the variation in adolescent loneliness, with some neighbourhood characteristics predicting loneliness at the individual level, and loneliness disparities for some groups differing across neighbourhoods.
... Es gibt bereits erste Evidenz, dass Haustiere Einsamkeit reduzieren können (Gardiner et al., 2018). Zudem fühlen sich Menschen, die in der Nähe von Grünflächen leben, tendenziell weniger einsam (Buecker, Ebert et al., 2021). Dieser Befund könnte darauf zurückzuführen sein, dass Grünflächen soziale Kontakt-und Aktivitätsmöglichkeiten bieten. ...
Einsamkeit spielt nicht erst seit der Corona-Pandemie eine bedeutsame Rolle. Obwohl die meisten Menschen im Laufe ihres Lebens von Einsamkeit betroffen sind, ist sie schambehaftet und wird im Alltag tabuisiert. Durch eine interdisziplinäre und multiperspektivische Betrachtungsweise wird die Vielfalt der Einsamkeitserfahrungen sowie deren persönliche und gesamtgesellschaftliche Bedeutung in diesem Sammelband greifbar - kognitiv wie emotional. Betroffenenperspektiven werden dabei mit wissenschaftlichen sowie praxisnahen Erkenntnissen vereint. Damit soll ein Beitrag geleistet werden, Einsamkeit innerhalb der Gesellschaft zu enttabuisieren und als soziale Herausforderung anzunehmen.
... While there is a growing understanding of the higher level of loneliness among older migrants and its causes, insights into the contextual variation in, and the determinants of, older migrants' loneliness are missing. Prior neighbourhood studies on loneliness among the general population have shown that spatial variation in contextual factors such as the level of urbanity, population density, socioeconomic deprivation, population change and diversity, social cohesion, infrastructure, transportation, and regional remoteness are associated with the experience of loneliness [1,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53]. People from ethnic minorities tend to settle in certain neighbourhoods due to a variety of reasons, such as discriminatory housing practices, need for security against racial discrimination, harassment, lower housing costs, and wish to reside close to co-ethnics [54][55][56]. ...
So far, little attention has been paid to contextual factors shaping loneliness and their interaction with individual characteristics. Moreover, the few existing studies have not included older migrants, identified as a group who are vulnerable to loneliness. This study examined the association between neighbourhood ethnic density (the proportion of own-group residents and the proportion of other ethnic residents in an area) and loneliness among older migrants. Furthermore, we investigated whether local language skills moderated this association. A population-based representative survey (The CHARM study, n = 1082, 57% men, mean age 63.2 years) and postal code area statistics were used to study Russian-speaking migrants aged 50 or older in Finland. The study design and data are hierarchical, with individuals nested in postcode areas. We accounted for this by estimating corresponding mixed models. We used a linear outcome specification and conducted logistic and ordinal robustness checks. After controlling for covariates, we found that ethnic density variables (measured as the proportion of Russian speakers and the proportion of other foreign speakers) were not associated with loneliness. Our interaction results showed that increased own-group ethnic density was associated with a higher level of loneliness among those with good local language skills but not among those with weaker skills. Good local language skills may indicate a stronger orientation towards the mainstream destination society and living in a neighbourhood with a higher concentration of own-language speakers may feel alienating for those who wish to be more included in mainstream society.
... Es gibt bereits erste Evidenz, dass Haustiere Einsamkeit reduzieren können (Gardiner et al., 2018). Zudem fühlen sich Menschen, die in der Nähe von Grünflächen leben, tendenziell weniger einsam (Buecker, Ebert et al., 2021). Dieser Befund könnte darauf zurückzuführen sein, dass Grünflächen soziale Kontakt-und Aktivitätsmöglichkeiten bieten. ...
Einsamkeit spielt nicht erst seit der Corona-Pandemie eine bedeutsame Rolle. Obwohl die meisten Menschen im Laufe ihres Lebens von Einsamkeit betroffen sind, ist sie schambehaftet und wird im Alltag tabuisiert. Durch eine interdisziplinäre und multiperspektivische Betrachtungsweise wird die Vielfalt der Einsamkeitserfahrungen sowie deren persönliche und gesamtgesellschaftliche Bedeutung in diesem Sammelband greifbar – kognitiv wie emotional. Betroffenenperspektiven werden dabei mit wissenschaftlichen sowie praxisnahen Erkenntnissen vereint. Damit soll ein Beitrag geleistet werden, Einsamkeit innerhalb der Gesellschaft zu enttabuisieren und als soziale Herausforderung anzunehmen.
... We found that in science, studies of loneliness have looked for biological correlates of loneliness in the brain (Cacioppo et al., 2014). In geography, scholars have sought to find and study regional differences (Buecker, et al., 2020) and economists have asked whether there are connections to draw between loneliness and varying income levels (Macdonald et al., 2018). Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies scholars introduce metaphysical questions about loneliness as part of the human condition (Collins, 1989). ...
Helping students to become more resilient to online misinformation is widely recognised as an essential task for education in a rapidly digitalising world. Students need both scientific knowledge and epistemic insight to navigate online spaces containing sensationalised reports of scientific and technological developments. Epistemic insight involves epistemic curiosity and the ability to think critically about the nature, application and communication of knowledge. This includes developing an understanding of the power and limitations of science and a curiosity regarding its relationship with other disciplines. We present a workshop designed for school students aged 16–18 titled ‘Can science and technology cure loneliness?’, designed to develop students' epistemic insight through investigating loneliness through a multidisciplinary perspective. We discuss how the design and pedagogy of this workshop might help students to build epistemic humility—the recognition that no single disciplinary perspective can complete our knowledge about a given topic. As part of a broader programme, epistemic insight‐based pedagogies have the potential to develop students' resistance to science‐ and technology‐related misinformation and prepare them for their potential role in shaping our scientific and technological future.
Geographical perspectives can make distinctive contributions to how we understand, explain and investigate loneliness, and what we do about it. Conversely, loneliness can also open new windows on a range of geographical questions and concerns. This paper frames geographical perspectives on loneliness, reviewing and advancing upon conceptual and methodological first steps that focus upon tangible geographies and statistical measurement and mapping. It directs attention to less tangible geographies (such as feelings of belonging and localised relationship norms) and innovative qualitative methods, exemplified by storying. Stories – elicited, collected and interpreted – illuminate geographical experiences, qualities, causes and consequences of loneliness.
Background
Regional differences in the Big Five personality domains have been observed in several countries at different geographical granularities, often correlating with regional political, economic, social, and health (PESH) indicators.
Objective
We examined the extent of regional personality differences in Estonia and whether these differences were meaningfully correlated with PESH indicators.
Methods
Using data from the Estonian Biobank ( N = 72,268; 7% of the adult population, providing unprecedented representativeness), we tested regional personality differences and their relations with PESH indicators with and without spatial smoothing.
Results
We found that regional Big Five scores varied by 1.19 (extraversion) to 2.78 (openness) T ‐score units across counties ( N = 15) and by 2.80 (extraversion) to 4.74 (openness) units across municipalities ( n = 74). Also, the correlations with the PESH indicators at the county and municipality levels persisted even after controlling for gender, age, and spatial dependency, and were moderately consistent with our predictions ( r = 0.23 to 0.30) and between the county and municipality levels ( r = 0.41).
Conclusions
Estonian residents tended to be similar in personality traits regardless of their location, replicating results from other countries. Yet, small regional personality domain differences could represent valid and possibly consequential psychological variation.
Exploring how psychological constructs and their outcomes vary across geographic regions is a rapidly expanding area of research, yet fundamental questions remain. Can constructs designed to describe individual variation in attitudes be interpreted in the same way when aggregated to regional levels? To what extent are they related or distinct? We tested the relationship between individual and regional attitudes across four studies in the domain of intergroup attitudes. Participants reported explicit prejudices and stereotypes toward 14 different social groups, and incorporating data from Project Implicit, we compared the characteristics of regional and individual operationalizations of prejudice. Further, we tested whether attitudes related to one another in the same way across levels using representational similarity analysis. Drawing from construct validity theory, we find evidence that regional prejudice is an emergent property of individual attitudes, to which it is related but distinct. These findings contextualize stereotype and prejudice constructs in regional analyses in psychology.
Background
Social connection factors play a key role for young people's mental health. It is important to understand how their influence may vary across contexts. We investigated structural (e.g. household size), functional (e.g. social support) and quality (e.g. feeling close) social connection factors in relation to adolescent internalising and externalising symptoms, comparing two countries Brazil and the United Kingdom (UK).
Methods
We pooled data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and the Brazilian High Risk Cohort Study (BHRCS). We included 12 social connection variables, identified through retrospective harmonisation and lived experience expert involvement. We tested measurement invariance and conducted multiple regressions to analyse associations between the social connection factors (age 14) and later internalising and externalising difficulties (age 17.5) in both cohorts. We investigated country‐level interactions and used weights to account for attrition, survey design, population representativeness and sample size.
Results
We found pooled main associations with later internalising symptoms for ‘living with half‐siblings’ (p < .001), ‘moving address’ (p = .001), ‘mother marital status’ (p < .001–.003), ‘bullying’ (p = .001), ‘being bullied’ (p < .001) and ‘difficulties keeping friends’ (p < .001). For externalising, we found main associations with ‘household size’ (p = .041), ‘moving address’ (p = .041), ‘mother's marital status’ (p = .001–.013), ‘bullying others’ (p < .001) and ‘being bullied’ (p < .001). Country‐level interactions suggested higher internalising symptoms were associated with ‘household size’ (p = .001) in Brazil and ‘being bullied’ (p < .001) in MCS. Additionally, ‘half‐siblings in household’ (p = .003), ‘poor mother–child relationship’ (p = .018), ‘single mother’ (p = .035), ‘bullying’ (p < .001) and ‘being bullied’ (p < .001) were more strongly linked to externalising difficulties in MCS.
Conclusions
Social connection factors, mostly structural, contributed to adolescent internalising and externalising difficulties in both countries. Factors relating to bullying and family composition seem to play a stronger role in each country. Cultural and socioeconomic factors might explain these differences. Future research should investigate cross‐regional differences to meaningfully inform global mental health efforts.
A t the beginning of 2020, the entire world was shocked by a global health emergency. According to the literature, fear, high mortality and health restrictions had significant psychological consequences on the population. This study evaluates the French lockdown's impact on the grieving process and how people worked through their grief. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 participants who had lost a loved one between March 2020, June, and September 2021 (T0) and 6 months later (T1). Subsequently, they were divided into two groups: those who lost someone during the first lockdown (Group 1) and those who lost someone outside the lockdown periods (Group 2). The interviews were analysed using the ALCESTE software, a statistical analysis tool for textual data based on word co-occurrences. This research significantly advances the understanding of bereavement during crises, providing new perspectives and practical insights for policymakers, healthcare professionals and support organisations. Its methodological innovation and detailed analysis contribute to the ongoing discussion on grief and resilience in challenging circumstances. Ultimately, this study lays the foundation for improved support and intervention strategies tailored to the needs of bereaved individuals during crises.
At the beginning of 2020, the entire world was shocked by a global health emergency. According to the literature, fear, high mortality and health restrictions had significant psychological consequences on the population. This study evaluates the French lockdown's impact on the grieving process and how people worked through their grief. Two semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 31 participants who had lost a loved one between March 2020, June, and September 2021 (T0) and 6 months later (T1). Subsequently, they were divided into two groups: those who lost someone during the first lockdown (Group 1) and those who lost someone outside the lockdown periods (Group 2). The interviews were analysed using the ALCESTE software, a statistical analysis tool for textual data based on word co‐occurrences. This research significantly advances the understanding of bereavement during crises, providing new perspectives and practical insights for policymakers, healthcare professionals and support organisations. Its methodological innovation and detailed analysis contribute to the ongoing discussion on grief and resilience in challenging circumstances. Ultimately, this study lays the foundation for improved support and intervention strategies tailored to the needs of bereaved individuals during crises.
This chapter analyses the prevalence of loneliness in the European Union along several dimensions, exploring vulnerabilities within specific demographic groups and mitigating or triggering factors such as meaningful social connections and life events. The first part of the chapter investigates which demographic and socio-economic groups are more vulnerable to loneliness. In particular, it considers characteristics such as age, gender, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, disability, migration background and population density of the place of residence. The second part of the chapter is devoted to shedding light on the relationship between loneliness and social connectedness. Regression analysis is used to investigate how the risk of feeling lonely is associated with a rich set of variables related to respondents’ social interactions and relationships. Finally, the chapter looks into life events that might trigger loneliness. Major life transitions, such as retirement or leaving the education system, may bring disruptions to people’s social networks and thus increase the risk of feeling lonely.
Loneliness represents a significant health risk and is associated with numerous mental and physical conditions. The aim of this paper was to describe the prevalence of loneliness in Bavaria before and during the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to socio-demographic attributes.
Data sources were the German Ageing Survey (DEAS) and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Univariate statistical analyses were carried out for different socio-demographic attributes, such as age, gender, type of household, education, and financial resources.
According to the SOEP, the proportion of adults who are often or very often lonely increased from 2.3% in 2017 to 16.2% in 2021. In 2021, women had a higher prevalence of loneliness than men (21.0% vs. 11.3%), and younger adults had the highest prevalence of loneliness (18 to 25 years: 31.7%) compared to the other age groups.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, loneliness increased in almost every population subgroup in Bavaria. Further studies are needed to examine whether this development is temporary or represents a long-term effect even after the measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have been lifted.
Background and Objectives
Loneliness is a major public health concern; however, limited research has examined the mechanisms contributing to racial/ethnic inequities in loneliness. Race/ethnicity has been hypothesized to be a distal factor influencing loneliness, and racial/ethnic inequities in loneliness may be attributable to socioeconomic factors (e.g., income, education). Our study seeks to confirm these hypotheses by examining mechanisms that contribute to racial/ethnic inequities in loneliness. In other words, if racial/ethnic differences in loneliness among older adults are mediated by income and education.
Research Design and Methods
Data came from the Health and Retirement Study Leave-Behind Questionnaire, 2014-2016. Loneliness was measured by the UCLA 3-item loneliness scale. Race/ethnicity categories were White, Black, and Hispanic/Latino. The mediator variables were household income and education. Multivariable linear regression models were used to determine differences in loneliness by race/ethnicity. The KHB mediation method was used to determine if income and education mediated racial/ethnic differences in loneliness.
Results
In models examining income and education together, a complete mediation was found between White and Black older adults, in that income and education completely mediated differences in loneliness between these groups. A partial mediation was found between White and Hispanic, and Black and Hispanic older adults. When examining income and education separately, we found that income solely accounted for racial/ethnic differences in loneliness compared to education.
Discussion and Implications
Our study is the first to explicitly determine if socioeconomic factors mediate race/ethnicity differences in loneliness among a national sample of older adults. These findings illustrate that income may have greater proximate effects for loneliness among older adults in comparison to education. Additionally, these findings can inform evidence-based interventions to reduce loneliness among older adults. Interventions that enhance quality of life and provide opportunities for socialization for racialized low-income older adults may help decrease racial/ethnic inequities in loneliness.
Hintergrund: Einsamkeit ist bei Kindern und Jugendlichen weit verbreitet und steht mit zahlreichen physischen, psychischen und schulischen Faktoren im Zusammenhang. Für Deutschland liegen dazu jedoch erst wenige empirische Erkenntnisse vor. Ziel dieser Expertise ist es daher, einen Überblick des Forschungsstandes zum Thema zu liefern und mit Hilfe aktueller Daten zu untersuchen, inwieweit Einsamkeit bei Kindern und Jugendlichen mit schulischen Aspekten (Schulform, Schulzufriedenheit, schulischen Belastungen und schulischer Unterstützung) in Verbindung steht.
Methodik: Ausgewertet werden Daten der Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Studie (HBSC) Brandenburg. Die HBSC-Studie ist ein internationales Forschungsvorhaben, das im Turnus von vier Jahren unter der Schirmherrschaft der Weltgesundheitsorganisation durchgeführt wird. Rund 4.000 Schüler*innen der Klassenstufen 5, 7 und 9 aus allgemeinbildenden Schulen in Brandenburg wurden unter anderem zu ihrem Erleben von Einsamkeit und ihren Wahrnehmungen der schulischen Umwelt befragt.
Ergebnisse: Mehr als 10 % der Schüler*innen können als einsam eingestuft werden, wobei Mädchen, Heranwachsende mit der Geschlechtszuschreibung „Divers“ und ältere Jugendliche stärker betroffen sind. Einsame Schüler*innen berichten von einer höheren schulischen Belastung, einer geringeren Schulzufriedenheit und geringerer Unterstützung durch Lehrkräfte und Mitschüler*innen.
Schlussfolgerung: Einsamkeit in der Kindheit und Jugend spielt auch im schulischen Kontext eine wichtige Rolle. Schüler*innen sollten in ihren emotionalen und sozialen Kompetenzen gestärkt werden. Lehrkräfte können zu einem positiven Schulklima und einer sozialen Unterstützung der Lernenden beitragen und so Einsamkeit begegnen.
Psychology has tended to conceptualize loneliness as a lack of intimate and social relationships. This analysis draws on the journal entries of 100 participants in the Pandemic Journaling Project (PJP; a research study and online journaling platform that invited participants to chronicle their experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic) to illustrate a more foundational sense of loneliness as a lack of bodily attunement, interaction, and intersection with others in a world of places. This bodies‐in‐places perspective reveals important material dimensions of loneliness that have often been overlooked. Loneliness is understood not as a static characteristic of the individual, but rather as an embodied and emplaced relational and ecological phenomenon.
Das Barometer nutzt die Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP), um die Langzeitentwicklung in Deutschland zu beschreiben. Es untersucht u. a. Veränderungen des Risikoprofils für Einsamkeitsbelastungen, die Entwicklung der Teilhabe am gesellschaftlichen Leben in Deutschland, die Entwicklung der ökonomischen und sozialen Lage von Menschen mit erhöhten Einsamkeitsbelastungen und die Entwicklung der politischen Partizipation von Menschen in Einsamkeitslagen.
Weitere Informationen gibt es hier: https://kompetenznetz-einsamkeit.de/forschung
Psychologie der Einsamkeit Zahlreiche Studien belegen die schwerwiegenden Folgen der Einsamkeit für die körperliche und seelische Gesundheit. Einsamkeit ist mit hohem Leidensdruck verbunden, chronische Einsamkeit spielt eine Rolle für das Auftreten und die Aufrechterhaltung verschiedener Erkrankungen. Das Buch bietet einen wissenschaftlich fundierten Einstieg in das komplexe Thema. Ausgehend von einer Begriffsdefinition und Abgrenzung gegenüber verwandten Konzepten wird die Epidemiologie der Einsamkeit beleuchtet. Weitere Kapitel widmen sich der Entstehung von Einsamkeit, ihrem Zusammenhang mit körperlichen und psychischen Erkrankungen sowie verschiedenen Erhebungsmethoden. Das Buch schließt mit aktuellen Perspektiven: Der Diskussion, ob Einsamkeit in den letzten Jahren zugenommen hat, und dem Forschungsstand zu wirksamen Interventionen.
Background
To date, most studies examining the prevalence and determinants of depression among individuals aged 80 and over have used geographically limited samples that are not generalisable to the wider population. Thus, our aim was to identify the prevalence and the factors associated with probable depression among the oldest old in Germany based on nationally representative data.
Methods
Data were taken from the nationally representative ‘Old Age in Germany (D80+)’ study ( n = 8386; November 2020 to April 2021) covering both community‐dwelling and institutionalised individuals aged 80 and over. The Short Form of the Depression in Old Age Scale was used to quantify probable depression.
Results
Probable depression was found in 40.7% (95% CI: 39.5% to 42.0%) of the sample; 31.3% were men (95% CI: 29.7% to 32.9%) and 46.6% women (95% CI: 44.9% to 48.3%). The odds of probable depression were positively associated with being female (odds ratio (OR): 1.55, 95% CI: 1.30 to 1.84), being divorced (compared to being married, OR: 1.33, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.76), being widowed (OR: 1.14, 95% CI: 1.00 to 1.30), having a low education (e.g., medium education compared to low education, OR: 0.86, 95% CI: 0.74 to 0.99), living in an institutionalised setting (OR: 2.36, 95% CI: 1.84 to 3.02), living in East Germany (OR: 1.21, 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.39), not having German citizenship (German citizenship compared to other citizenship, OR: 0.55, 95% CI: 0.31 to 0.95), poor self‐rated health (OR: 0.31, 95% CI: 0.28 to 0.34), and the number of chronic conditions (OR: 1.12, 95% CI: 1.09 to 1.14).
Conclusion
About four out of 10 individuals aged 80 and over in Germany had probable depression, underlining the importance of this challenge. Knowledge of specific risk factors for this age group may assist in addressing older adults at risk of probable depression.
Loneliness is most often understood as resulting from individual deficits that shape poor social engagement and unsatisfying interactions. As a consequence, interventions to address loneliness most often focus on fixing the lonely individual, for example, by modifying their social appraisals and skills, or encouraging them to get out more. In this paper, we characterize and contribute to changing this dominant narrative by arguing that it is both unhelpful and incomplete. We explain that this dominant narrative (1) increases loneliness and makes people feel worse about this experience, (2) does not account for important predictors of loneliness, (3) guides us to interventions that do not produce sufficiently effective or sustainable change, and (4) hinders broader understandings of the societal impact of loneliness. In this way, we argue that the dominant narrative around loneliness contributes to further setting those who feel lonely apart from the rest of society. We propose that attention to individual factors needs to be complemented by the acknowledgement that loneliness is heavily determined by social and structural conditions that render it unequally distributed in society, a situation that qualifies loneliness as a social justice issue.
Loneliness, a widespread global public health concern, has far-reaching implications for mental and physical well-being, as well as economic productivity. It also increases the risk of life-threatening conditions. This study conducts a comparative analysis of loneliness in the USA and India using Twitter data, aiming to contribute to a global public health map on loneliness. Collecting 4.1 million tweets globally in October 2022 containing keywords like “lonely”, “loneliness”, and “alone”, the analysis focuses on sentiment and psychosocial linguistic features. Utilizing the Valence Aware Dictionary for Sentiment Reasoning (VADER) for sentiment analysis, the study explores variations in loneliness dynamics across cities, revealing geographical distinctions in correlated topics. The tweets with negative sentiment were further analyzed for psychosocial linguistic features to find a meaningful correlation between loneliness and socioeconomic and emotional themes and factors. Results give detailed top correlated topics with loneliness for each city. The results showed that the dynamics of loneliness through the topics correlated vary across geographical locations. Social media data can be used to capture the dynamics of loneliness which can vary from one place to another depending on the socioeconomic and cultural norms and sociopolitical policies. Social media data to understand loneliness can also provide useful information and insight for public health and policymaking.
Die Expertise befasst sich aus stadtplanerischer Perspektive mit Einsamkeit und der Frage, welche Einsamkeitsrisiken auf kommunaler Ebene bestehen und welche Faktoren zur Verbesserung der Rahmenbedingungen beitragen können. Im Fokus steht das Quartier als Handlungsebene. Das Wohnumfeld, die Nachbarschaft, das Quartier kann mit seinen städtebaulichen Strukturen und seiner infrastrukturellen Ausstattung, dem öffentlichen Raum und den Teilhabeangeboten Einfluss auf das Einsamkeitsempfinden nehmen. Das Quartier ist gleichzeitig der Ort für nachbarschaftliche Beziehungen und ein soziales Miteinander, was soziale, kollektive und kulturelle Einsamkeit verringern kann. Im Kapitel 2 werden die Begriffe Einsamkeit und Integrierte Stadtentwicklung in einen Zusammenhang gebracht. Kapitel 3 führt in die Handlungsfelder einer integrierten gemeinwohlorientierten Stadt- und Quartiersentwicklung ein. Im Kapitel 4 werden Überlegungen zu einem gesamtstädtischen Monitoring angestellt, um einsamkeitsgefährdete Quartiere zu identifizieren. Kapitel 5 bietet Handlungsansätze gegen das Einsamkeitsrisiko im Quartier, die integriert zu bearbeiten sind: die gebaute Umwelt und Infrastrukturen des Alltagslebens, professionelle Hilfs- und Unterstützungsaktivitäten sowie das bürgerschaftliche Engagement. Kommunale Strategien und Praxisansätze im Umgang mit Einsamkeit aus Barcelona, Stuttgart und Verona zeigen im Kapitel 6 konkrete Spielräume der städtischen Politik und Verwaltung sowie der Stadtgesellschaft auf. Im Schlusskapitel werden weitere Handlungserfordernisse im Hinblick auf den kommunalen Umgang mit Einsamkeit abgeleitet.
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the protective and risk factors involved in student loneliness after the lockdown measures taken limiting social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic in France.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a cross-sectional survey methodology, the authors collected data on a sample of 546 students pursuing management education in a French business school in several campuses. Loneliness was measured by the three-item UCLA loneliness scale. Logistic regression analysis examined the factors influencing student loneliness.
Findings
The prevalence of loneliness was 23.4%. Risk factors for loneliness were social isolation especially in terms of intensity and isolation from friends (OR: 5.40), having a regular paid activity (OR: 1.62) and not getting academic help from other students (OR: 2.11) or taking meals alone during the lockdowns (OR: 1.94). Being a male student (OR: 0.47), practicing a sport (OR: 0.64) and studying at a specific campus (OR: 0.43) were protective factors.
Practical implications
Understanding protective and risk factors affecting student loneliness helps higher education decision-makers to take the necessary actions to enhance student well-being which have an effect on learning processes.
Originality/value
Loneliness is a major public health concern among students. Knowledge of the determinants for loneliness are limited and this article attempts to augment this by exploring several protective and risk indicators of loneliness among French students.
Objective
This study investigated the relationship between work-related factors at baseline and the risk of common mental disorder at 12 month follow-up among a cohort of junior doctors.
Method
The data comprised the junior doctor respondents from two annual waves of the ‘Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life’ (MABEL) survey, a national longitudinal cohort of Australian doctors. Individual and work-related risk factors were assessed at baseline and the mental health outcome of caseness of common mental disorder (CMD) was assessed using the 6-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale at 12-month follow-up. Unadjusted and adjusted logistic regressions were conducted to estimate the association between each baseline variable and the likelihood of CMD caseness at follow-up 1 year later.
Results
Among 383 junior doctors, 24 (6%) had CMD 1 year later. Five work-related baseline variables were significantly associated with a higher likelihood of CMD 1 year later in adjusted models; lack of social support in work location (odds ratios (OR) = 6.11; 95% confidence intervals (CI) = [2.52, 14.81]), work-life imbalance (OR = 4.50; 95% CI = [1.31, 15.46]), poor peer support network in the workplace (OR = 2.61; 95% CI = [1.08, 6.27]), perceptions of patient expectations (OR = 2.46; 95% CI = [1.06, 5.71]) and total weekly work hours (OR 1.04; 95% CI = [1.01, 1.07]; p = 0.002)in models adjusting for gender.
Conclusion
These results identify key modifiable work-related factors that are associated with junior doctors’ future mental health. Our findings suggest the need for a greater focus upon interpersonal factors and work-life balance in multi-level interventions while continuing to address workplace and system-level factors to prevent future mental disorder in junior doctors.
Objective:
One large focus of personality psychology is to understand the biopsychosocial factors responsible for adult personality development and well-being change. However, little is known about how macro-level contextual factors, such as rurality-urbanicity, are related to personality development and well-being change.
Method:
The present study uses data from two large longitudinal studies of U.S. Americans (MIDUS, HRS) to examine whether there are rural-urban differences in levels and changes in the Big Five personality traits and well-being (i.e., psychological well-being, and life satisfaction) in adulthood.
Results:
Multilevel models showed that Americans who lived in more rural areas tended to have lower levels of openness, conscientiousness, and psychological well-being, and higher levels of neuroticism. With the exception of psychological well-being (which replicated across MIDUS and HRS), rural-urban differences in personality traits were only evident in the HRS sample. The effect of neuroticism was fully robust to the inclusion of socio-demographic and social network covariates, but other effects were partially robust (i.e., conscientiousness and openness) or were not robust at all (i.e., psychological well-being). In both samples, there were no rural-urban differences in Big Five or well-being change.
Conclusions:
We discuss the implications of these findings for personality and rural health research.
Objective
The reunification of Germany after the separation between 1949 and 1990 has offered a unique chance of studying the impact of socialization, political transformation, and migration on mental health. The purpose of this article was to compare mental distress, resources, and life satisfaction (1) between residents of East and West Germany and migrants who have fled from East to West Germany before reunification and (2) between three generations.
Methods
We assessed anxiety, depression, resilience, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, comparing groups based on their residency and migration, as well as three different birth cohorts. Using a representative survey of 2006, analyses of variance show the differences between these groups. Based on a representative survey (N = 4,530), the effects of gender (53.6% women), residency/migration (74.4% grown up in the West, 20.4% in the East, 5.3% migrants from the East to the West) from three generations (32% born until 1945, 39% until 1967, and 29% to 1989), and positive and negative mental health indicators were analyzed.
Results
Women reported higher distress and lower resilience. Residents of the Western states reported the lowest burden of distress (depressive and anxiety symptoms) and the highest overall life satisfaction, exceeding residents from the Eastern states and migrants from the Eastern to the Western states. Migrants from the Eastern to the Western states, however, reported the lowest resilience and self-esteem. They reported lower satisfaction with income, living conditions (compared to the Western residents), and the lowest levels of satisfaction with family (compared to East and West).
Conclusion
Overall, our data point to inequalities between the Eastern and Western states regarding mental health 16 years after reunification favoring the residents of the Western states by lower distress and life satisfaction. Our data attest to the stresses and adjustments associated with migration from the Eastern to the Western states before reunification. A lower level of mental health and life satisfaction in the oldest generation may be related to the sequelae of World War II and also to aging.
Background
A large body of research shows that social isolation and loneliness have detrimental health consequences. Identifying individuals at risk of social isolation or loneliness is, therefore, important. The objective of this study was to examine personal (e.g., sex, income) and geographic (rural/urban and sociodemographic) factors and their association with social isolation and loneliness in a national sample of Canadians aged 45 to 85 years.
Methods
The study involved cross-sectional analyses of baseline data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging that were linked to 2016 census data at the Forward Sortation Area (FSA) level. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the association between personal factors and geographic factors and social isolation and loneliness for the total sample, and women and men, respectively.
Results
The prevalence of social isolation and loneliness was 5.1% and 10.2%, respectively, but varied substantially across personal characteristics. Personal characteristics (age, sex, education, income, functional impairment, chronic diseases) were significantly related to both social isolation and loneliness, although some differences emerged in the direction of the relationships for the two measures. Associations also differed somewhat for women versus men. Associations between some geographic factors emerged for social isolation, but not loneliness. Living in an urban core was related to increased odds of social isolation, an effect that was no longer significant when FSA-level factors were controlled for. FSAs with a higher percentage of 65+ year old residents with low income were consistently associated with higher odds of social isolation.
Conclusion
The findings indicate that socially isolated individuals are, to some extent, clustered into areas with a high proportion of low-income older adults, suggesting that support and resources could be targeted at these areas. For loneliness, the focus may be less on where people live, but rather on personal characteristics that place individuals at risk.
Objective: There is growing evidence that certain regional personality differences function as important drivers and shapers of regional economic development (e.g., via effects on entrepreneurship and innovation activity). The present investigation examines the impact that regional variation in the trait courage has on entrepreneurship.
Method: Using data from a new large-scale internet-based study, we provide the first psychological map of courage across the US (N = 390,341 respondents from 283 US metropolitan regions). We apply regression analyses to relate regional courage scores to archival data on the emergence and survival of start-ups across American regions.
Results: Our mapping approach reveals comparatively high levels of regional courage in the Eastern and Southern regions of the US. Regional courage scores were positively related to entrepreneurial activity, but negatively related to start-up survival - even when controlling for a wide variety of standard economic predictors. Several robustness checks confirmed these results. Finally, regional differences in economic risk-taking accounted for significant proportions of variance in the link between regional courage and entrepreneurship.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that regional courage may contribute to a pattern of enterprising but also risky economic behavior, which can lead to high levels of entrepreneurial activity but also shorter start-up survival.
The present study extended traditional nation-based research on person–culture–fit to the regional level. First, we examined the geographical distribution of Big Five personality traits in Switzerland. Across the 26 Swiss cantons, unique patterns were observed for all traits. For Extraversion and Neuroticism clear language divides emerged between the French- and Italian-speaking South-West vs. the German-speaking North-East. Second, multilevel modeling demonstrated that person–environment–fit in Big Five, composed of elevation (i.e., mean differences between individual profile and cantonal profile), scatter (differences in mean variances) and shape (Pearson correlations between individual and cantonal profiles across all traits; Furr, 2008, 2010), predicted the development of subjective wellbeing (i.e., life satisfaction, satisfaction with personal relationships, positive affect, negative affect) over a period of 4 years. Unexpectedly, while the effects of shape were in line with the person–environment–fit hypothesis (better fit predicted higher subjective wellbeing), the effects of scatter showed the opposite pattern, while null findings were observed for elevation. Across a series of robustness checks, the patterns for shape and elevation were consistently replicated. While that was mostly the case for scatter as well, the effects of scatter appeared to be somewhat less robust and more sensitive to the specific way fit was modeled when predicting certain outcomes (negative affect, positive affect). Distinguishing between supplementary and complementary fit may help to reconcile these findings and future research should explore whether and if so under which conditions these concepts may be applicable to the respective facets of person–culture–fit.
Five studies tested the hypothesis that people living in more diverse neighborhoods would have more inclusive identities, and would thus be more prosocial. Study 1 found that people residing in more racially diverse metropolitan areas were more likely to tweet prosocial concepts in their everyday lives. Study 2 found that following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, people in more racially diverse neighborhoods were more likely to spontaneously offer help to individuals stranded by the bombings. Study 3 found that people living in more ethnically diverse countries were more likely to report having helped a stranger in the past month. Providing evidence of the underlying mechanism, Study 4 found that people living in more racially diverse neighborhoods were more likely to identify with all of humanity, which explained their greater likelihood of having helped a stranger in the past month. Finally, providing causal evidence for the relationship between neighborhood diversity and prosociality, Study 5 found that people asked to imagine that they were living in a more racially diverse neighborhood were more willing to help others in need, and this effect was mediated by a broader identity. The studies identify a novel mechanism through which exposure to diversity can influence people, and document a novel consequence of this mechanism.
For Germany, regional differences for various health indicators, which are also associated with socioeconomic factors, have been documented. This article aims to develop a regional socioeconomic deprivation index for Germany that (1) can be used to analyse regional socioeconomic inequalities in health and (2) provides a basis for explaining regional health differences in Germany.
The core data stem from the INKAR (indicators and maps on spatial and urban development in Germany and Europe) database compiled by Germany’s Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development. Factor analysis is used for indexing and the weighting of indicators for the three dimensions of education, occupation and income. The German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation (GISD) is generated at the levels of associations of municipalities, administrative districts and administrative regions for the years 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2012. Aggregate data and individual data from the German Health Update 2014/2015-EHIS (GEDA 2014/2015-EHIS) study are used to analyse associations between the index and selected health indicators.
For around two thirds of the causes of death, the German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation reveals significant socioeconomic inequalities at the level of Germany’s administrative regions. At district level, life expectancy in the bottom fifth of districts presenting the highest levels of deprivation is, depending on the observation period, 1.3 years lower for women and 2.6 years lower for men in comparison to the upper fifth of districts presenting the lowest levels of deprivation. The index can explain 45.5% and 62.2% of regional differences in life expectancy for women and men, respectively. Moreover, the population in regions characterised by high levels of deprivation has significantly higher rates of smokers, engages less frequently in leisure-time physical activities and is more often obese.
The German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation illustrates regional socioeconomic differences at different spatial levels and contributes to explaining regional health differences. This index is intended for use in research as well as by federal and federal state health reporting systems and should enable access to new sources of data for investigating the links between social inequalities and health in Germany.
Background
While loneliness has been regarded as a risk to mental and physical health, there is a lack of current community data covering a broad age range. This study used a large and representative German adult sample to investigate loneliness. Methods
Baseline data of the Gutenberg Health Study (GHS) collected between April 2007 and April 2012 (N = 15,010; 35–74 years), were analyzed. Recruitment for the community-based, prospective, observational cohort study was performed in equal strata for gender, residence and age decades. Measures were provided by self-report and interview. Loneliness was used as a predictor for distress (depression, generalized anxiety, and suicidal ideation) in logistic regression analyses adjusting for sociodemographic variables and mental distress. ResultsA total of 10.5% of participants reported some degree of loneliness (4.9% slight, 3.9% moderate and 1.7% severely distressed by loneliness). Loneliness declined across age groups. Loneliness was stronger in women, in participants without a partner, and in those living alone and without children. Controlling for demographic variables and other sources of distress loneliness was associated with depression (OR = 1.91), generalized anxiety (OR = 1.21) and suicidal ideation (OR = 1.35). Lonely participants also smoked more and visited physicians more frequently. Conclusions
The findings support the view that loneliness poses a significant health problem for a sizeable part of the population with increased risks in terms of distress (depression, anxiety), suicidal ideation, health behavior and health care utilization.
Regional studies globally has a strong focus on understanding the causes of variation in the economic performance and well-being of regions and this emphasis acknowledges that the strength of the local or regional economy plays a determinant role in shaping quality of life. Regional research has been less active in considering spatial variation in other factors that are critical to individual and societal well-being. For example, the regional studies community has been absent from the debate on the social determinants of health and how these influences vary spatially. This paper considers the results of a cross-sectional survey of Australians aged 65 years and over that focused on social connections and well-being. It examines regional variations in the incidence of social isolation within the older population. It finds that while the incidence of self-reported social isolation amongst older persons is broadly consistent with earlier studies, it demonstrates a spatial patterning that is unexpected. The paper considers community-building activities in addressing the impacts of social isolation, including the role of urban design, and suggests that there is a need to supplement the national overview presented there through more detailed studies focused on individual localities.
Contrary to common stereotypes, loneliness is not restricted to old age but can occur at any life stage. In this study, we used data from a large, nationally representative German study (N = 16,132) to describe and explain age differences in loneliness from late adolescence to oldest old age. The age distribution of loneliness followed a complex nonlinear trajectory, with elevated loneliness levels among young adults and among the oldest old. The late-life increase in loneliness could be explained by lower income levels, higher prevalence of functional limitations, and higher proportion of singles in this age group. Consistent with an age-normative perspective, the association of income, relationship status, household size, and work status with loneliness differed between different age groups. In contrast, indicators of the quantity of social relationships (social engagement, number of friends, contact frequency) were universally associated with loneliness regardless of age. Overall, these findings show that sources of loneliness in older adults are well understood. Future research should focus on understanding the specific sources of loneliness in middle-aged adults.
Demographic trends are placing increasing numbers of older people at risk of loneliness and social isolation, which is an established risk factor of morbidity and mortality. In recognition of the personal and societal costs of loneliness and social isolation there is an increasing interest, by policy makers, practitioners and charities to reduce loneliness and isolation. However, one of the barriers that service providers and policy makers face in
delivering effective interventions is how to identify those experiencing or those most at risk of experiencing loneliness. To address this, the Hidden Citizens project, funded by the National Institute for
Health Research (NIHR) School for Social Care Research (SSCR), explores current understandings of
and approaches to identifying loneliness and aims to provide innovative insights into how policy makers
and practitioners can improve their outreach.
The Hidden Citizens project was conducted in two parts. First, a meta-review was conducted to
explore the features of loneliness, its underlying mechanisms and how intervention programs identify and recruit their participants. The findings of the meta-review informed the second part of the project in which a number of interviews and focus groups with older people, service commissioners, service organisation CEO’s, managers and practitioners were conducted.
This report summarises the findings from these two parts of the Hidden Citizens project, which provide
insights regarding the pathways into and out of loneliness and examples of how interventions and
services identify the loneliest older adults. This report also contains specific recommendations for
policy makers, service providers and service commissioners on how to improve services and
service provision, and identifies avenues for future research to explore.
Actual and perceived social isolation are both associated with increased risk for early mortality. In this meta-analytic review, our objective is to establish the overall and relative magnitude of social isolation and loneliness and to examine possible moderators. We conducted a literature search of studies (January 1980 to February 2014) using MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Social Work Abstracts, and Google Scholar. The included studies provided quantitative data on mortality as affected by loneliness, social isolation, or living alone. Across studies in which several possible confounds were statistically controlled for, the weighted average effect sizes were as follows: social isolation odds ratio (OR) = 1.29, loneliness OR = 1.26, and living alone OR = 1.32, corresponding to an average of 29%, 26%, and 32% increased likelihood of mortality, respectively. We found no differences between measures of objective and subjective social isolation. Results remain consistent across gender, length of follow-up, and world region, but initial health status has an influence on the findings. Results also differ across participant age, with social deficits being more predictive of death in samples with an average age younger than 65 years. Overall, the influence of both objective and subjective social isolation on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality.
© The Author(s) 2015.
Significance
Recent studies in geographical psychology have demonstrated regional variations in personality—people with similar personality traits are more likely to be found in some regions than others. What is the psychological significance of such spatial clustering? Our study was motivated by the person–environment hypothesis, which postulates that the match between people’s personality and neighborhood characteristics is important for people’s life satisfaction. The results showed that personality traits were differently related to life satisfaction in different postal districts of London metropolitan area, and these varying associations were related to specific neighborhood characteristics, such as population density and ethnic heterogeneity. These findings demonstrate how individuals with different personality dispositions derive life satisfaction from different aspects of their social and physical environments.
Maximum likelihood or restricted maximum likelihood (REML) estimates of the
parameters in linear mixed-effects models can be determined using the lmer
function in the lme4 package for R. As for most model-fitting functions in R,
the model is described in an lmer call by a formula, in this case including
both fixed- and random-effects terms. The formula and data together determine a
numerical representation of the model from which the profiled deviance or the
profiled REML criterion can be evaluated as a function of some of the model
parameters. The appropriate criterion is optimized, using one of the
constrained optimization functions in R, to provide the parameter estimates. We
describe the structure of the model, the steps in evaluating the profiled
deviance or REML criterion, and the structure of classes or types that
represents such a model. Sufficient detail is included to allow specialization
of these structures by users who wish to write functions to fit specialized
linear mixed models, such as models incorporating pedigrees or smoothing
splines, that are not easily expressible in the formula language used by lmer.
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There is overwhelming evidence for regional variation across the United States on a range of key political, economic, social, and health indicators. However, a substantial body of research suggests that activities in each of these domains are typically influenced by psychological variables, raising the possibility that psychological forces might be the mediating or causal factors responsible for regional variation in the key indicators. Thus, the present article examined whether configurations of psychological variables, in this case personality traits, can usefully be used to segment the country. Do regions emerge that can be defined in terms of their characteristic personality profiles? How are those regions distributed geographically? And are they associated with particular patterns of key political, economic, social, and health indicators? Results from cluster analyses of 5 independent samples totaling over 1.5 million individuals identified 3 robust psychological profiles: Friendly & Conventional, Relaxed & Creative, and Temperamental & Uninhibited. The psychological profiles were found to cluster geographically and displayed unique patterns of associations with key geographical indicators. The findings demonstrate the value of a geographical perspective in unpacking the connections between microlevel processes and consequential macrolevel outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
As a social species, humans rely on a safe, secure social surround to survive and thrive. Perceptions of social isolation, or loneliness, increase vigilance for threat and heighten feelings of vulnerability while also raising the desire to reconnect. Implicit hypervigilance for social threat alters psychological processes that influence physiological functioning, diminish sleep quality, and increase morbidity and mortality. The purpose of this paper is to review the features and consequences of loneliness within a comprehensive theoretical framework that informs interventions to reduce loneliness. We review physical and mental health consequences of loneliness, mechanisms for its effects, and effectiveness of extant interventions. Features of a loneliness regulatory loop are employed to explain cognitive, behavioral, and physiological consequences of loneliness and to discuss interventions to reduce loneliness. Loneliness is not simply being alone. Interventions to reduce loneliness and its health consequences may need to take into account its attentional, confirmatory, and memorial biases as well as its social and behavioral effects.
This study examined social inequalities in health in the second half of life. Data for empirical analyses came from the second wave of the German Ageing Survey (DEAS), an ongoing population-based, representative study of community dwelling persons living in Germany, aged 40-85 years (N = 2,787). Three different indicators for socioeconomic status (SES; education, income, financial assets as an indicator for wealth) and health (physical, functional and subjective health) were employed. It could be shown that SES was related to health in the second half of life: Less advantaged persons between 40 and 85 years of age had worse health than more advantaged persons. Age gradients varied between status indicators and health dimensions, but in general social inequalities in health were rather stable or increasing over age. The latter was observed for wealth-related absolute inequalities in physical and functional health. Only income-related differences in subjective health decreased at higher ages. The amount of social inequality in health as well as its development over age did not vary by gender and place of residence (East or West Germany). These results suggest that, in Germany, the influence of SES on health remains important throughout the second half of life.
This study examined the relations between neighbourhood socio-economic status and features of public open spaces (POS) hypothesised to influence children's physical activity. Data were from the first follow-up of the Children Living in Active Neighbourhoods (CLAN) Study, which involved 540 families of 5-6 and 10-12-year-old children in Melbourne, Australia. The Socio-Economic Index for Areas Index (SEIFA) of Relative Socio-economic Advantage/Disadvantage was used to assign a socioeconomic index score to each child's neighbourhood, based on postcode. Participant addresses were geocoded using a Geographic Information System. The Open Space 2002 spatial data set was used to identify all POS within an 800 m radius of each participant's home. The features of each of these POS (1497) were audited. Variability of POS features was examined across quintiles of neighbourhood SEIFA. Compared with POS in lower socioeconomic neighbourhoods, POS in the highest socioeconomic neighbourhoods had more amenities (e.g. picnic tables and drink fountains) and were more likely to have trees that provided shade, a water feature (e.g. pond, creek), walking and cycling paths, lighting, signage regarding dog access and signage restricting other activities. There were no differences across neighbourhoods in the number of playgrounds or the number of recreation facilities (e.g. number of sports catered for on courts and ovals, the presence of other facilities such as athletics tracks, skateboarding facility and swimming pool). This study suggests that POS in high socioeconomic neighbourhoods possess more features that are likely to promote physical activity amongst children.
For Germany, regional differences for various health indicators, which are also associated with socioeconomic factors, have been documented. This article aims to develop a regional socioeconomic deprivation index for Germany that (1) can be used to analyse regional socioeconomic inequalities in health and (2) provides a basis for explaining regional health differences in Germany.
The core data stem from the INKAR (indicators and maps on spatial and urban development in Germany and Europe) database compiled by Germany’s Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development. Factor analysis is used for indexing and the weighting of indicators for the three dimensions of education, occupation and income. The German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation (GISD) is generated at the levels of associations of municipalities, administrative districts and administrative regions for the years 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2012. Aggregate data and individual data from the German Health Update 2014/2015-EHIS (GEDA 2014/2015-EHIS) study are used to analyse associations between the index and selected health indicators. For around two thirds of the causes of death, the German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation reveals significant socioeconomic inequalities at the level of Germany’s administrative regions. At district level, life expectancy in the bottom fifth of districts presenting the highest levels of deprivation is, depending on the observation period, 1.3 years lower for women and 2.6 years lower for men in comparison to the upper fifth of districts presenting the lowest levels of deprivation. The index can explain 45.5% and 62.2% of regional differences in life expectancy for women and men, respectively. Moreover, the population in regions characterised by high levels of deprivation has significantly higher rates of smokers, engages less frequently in leisure-time physical activities and is more often obese.
The German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation illustrates regional socioeconomic differences at different spatial levels and contributes to explaining regional health differences. This index is intended for use in research as well as by federal and federal state health reporting systems and should enable access to new sources of data for investigating the links between social inequalities and health in Germany.
There is growing evidence that psychological characteristics are spatially clustered across geographic regions and that regionally aggregated psychological characteristics are related to important outcomes. However, much of the evidence comes from research that relied on methods that are theoretically ill-suited for working with spatial data. The validity and generalizability of this work are thus unclear. Here we address two main challenges of working with spatial data (i.e., modifiable areal unit problem and spatial dependencies) and evaluate data-analysis techniques designed to tackle those challenges. To illustrate these issues, we investigate the robustness of regional Big Five personality differences and their correlates within the United States (Study 1; N = 3,387,303) and Germany (Study 2; N = 110,029). First, we display regional personality differences using a spatial smoothing approach. Second, we account for the modifiable areal unit problem by examining the correlates of regional personality scores across multiple spatial levels. Third, we account for spatial dependencies using spatial regression models. Our results suggest that regional psychological differences are robust and can reliably be studied across countries and spatial levels. The results also show that ignoring the methodological challenges of spatial data can have serious consequences for research concerned with regional psychological differences.
In this study, we investigated associations between the characteristics of the neighborhoods in which young adults live and their feelings of loneliness, using data from different sources. Participants were drawn from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study. Loneliness was measured via self-reports at ages 12 and 18 years and also by interviewer ratings at age 18. Neighborhood characteristics were assessed between the ages of 12 and 18 via government data, systematic social observations, a resident survey, and participants’ self-reports. Greater loneliness was associated with perceptions of lower collective efficacy and greater neighborhood disorder but not with more objective measures of neighborhood characteristics. Lonelier individuals perceived the collective efficacy of their neighborhoods to be lower than did their less lonely siblings who lived at the same address. These findings suggest that feelings of loneliness are associated with negatively biased perceptions of neighborhood characteristics, which may have implications for lonely individuals’ likelihood of escaping loneliness.
We make three points in response to Boyce, Daly, Hounkpatin, and Wood (2017). First, we clarify a misunderstanding of the goal of our analyses, which was to investigate the links between life satisfaction and spending patterns, rather than spending volume. Second, we report a simulation study we ran to demonstrate that our results were not driven by the proposed statistical artifact. Finally, we discuss the broader issue of why, in a world of big data, small but reliable effect sizes can be valuable.
Empathy is often studied at the individual level, but little is known about variation in empathy across geographic regions and how this variation is associated with important regional-level outcomes. The present study examined associations between state-level empathy, prosocial behavior, and antisocial behavior in the United States. Participants were 79,563 U.S. residential adults who completed measures of cognitive and emotional empathy (i.e., perspective taking and empathic concern). Information on prosocial and antisocial behavior was retrieved from publicly available government databases. All indices of empathy were related to lower rates of violent crime, aggravated assault, and robbery. Total empathy was associated with higher well-being and higher volunteer rates. Implications for geographic variation in empathy, prosocial behavior, and antisocial behavior are discussed.
While many associations between neighborhood characteristics and individual well-being have been reported, there is a lack of longitudinal studies that could provide evidence for or against causal interpretations of neighborhood effects. This study examined whether neighborhood urbanicity and socioeconomic status were associated with within-individual variation in depression, mistrust and social support when individuals were living in different neighborhoods with different levels of urbanicity and socioeconomic status. Participants were from the Young Finns prospective cohort study (N = 3074) with five repeated measurement times in 1992, 1997, 2001, 2007, and 2011. Neighborhood urbanicity and socioeconomic status were measured at the level of municipalities and zip-code areas. Within-individual variation over time was examined with multilevel regression, which adjusted the models for all stable individual differences that might confound associations between neighborhood characteristics and individual well-being. Social support from friends was higher in urban areas and in areas with higher socioeconomic status, whereas social support from the family was higher in rural areas. These associations were observed also in the within-individual analyses, and they were partly accounted for by employment and socioeconomic status of the participants. There were no associations between neighborhood characteristics and depression or mistrust. These findings suggest that people receive less support from their families and more support from their friends when living in urban compared to rural regions of Finland. These differences are partly explained by people's changing socioeconomic and employment statuses.
Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Demographic trends are placing increasing numbers of older people at risk of loneliness and social
isolation, which is an established risk factor of morbidity and mortality. In recognition of the
personal and societal costs of loneliness and social isolation there is an increasing interest, by policy
makers, practitioners and charities to reduce loneliness and isolation. However, one of the barriers
that service providers and policy makers face in delivering effective interventions is how to identify
those experiencing or those most at risk of experiencing loneliness. To address this, the Hidden Citizens project, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Social Care Research (SSCR), explores current understandings of and approaches to identifying loneliness and aims to provide innovative insights into how policy makers and practitioners can improve their outreach.
The Hidden Citizens project was conducted in two parts. First, a meta-review was conducted to explore the features of loneliness, its underlying mechanisms and how intervention programs identify and recruit their participants. The findings of the meta-review informed the second part of the project in which a number of interviews and focus groups with older people, service commissioners, service organisation CEO’s,
managers and practitioners were conducted.
This report summarises the findings from these two parts of the Hidden Citizens project, which provide
insights regarding the pathways into and out of loneliness and examples of how interventions and services identify the loneliest older adults. This report also contains specific recommendations for policy makers, service providers and service commissioners on how to improve services and service provision, and identifies avenues for future research to explore.
The ageing of the population raises questions regarding the quality of life of future generations. This paper focuses specifically on feelings of loneliness as an important aspect of quality of life in relation with mobility aspects and built environmental characteristics. Based on data collected in the southeast of the Netherlands among 344 respondents in 2014 four ordered logit models were estimated to explain the extent to which people feel lonely or socially isolated. The explanatory variables in the models are age; other personal and household characteristics; characteristics of the built environment and mobility aspects. The results indicate that, although age has little explanatory power, older people are likely to feel lonelier. Other personal and household characteristics, such as household composition, education, health status, being a volunteer and the number of social interactions are found to have more explanatory power. Characteristics of the built environment also explain a substantial part of variance in loneliness. Significant effects are found for living in an apartment, length of residence in the neighbourhood and satisfaction with the neighbourhood and its facilities. Finally, we find that the use of different transport modes (bicycle, car and public transport) significantly reduces loneliness.
We apply a comprehensive wealth index for the 100 largest autonomous cities in Germany to measure their endowment with environmental, energy, social, human, and economic capital stocks. We find that (i) there is no inherent trade-off between economic and environmental capital stocks; (ii) clear regional differences exist between West and East Germany and between North and South Germany; and (iii) the comprehensive wealth index is strongly correlated with housing rents, which reflect individual willingness to pay for living in a certain city.
Participation in social activities and the formation of social ties, networks, and capital are crucial in shaping not only the quality of life and health of an individual, but also in creating socially sustainable communities. This paper examines to what extent the urban environment shapes an individual’s level of satisfaction with his or her social contacts. A particular emphasis is placed on isolating the role of commuting times in impeding this outcome. The city of Vienna, Austria, is used as a case study. A statistical model considers elements of an individual’s neighborhood including population density and urban centrality, as well as personal characteristics and transportation-related factors. Results indicate that those with one-way commutes of 30 min or longer result in lower levels of social satisfaction. Residing in a neighborhood with high transit level of service and car ownership positively impact social satisfaction.
Socioecological psychology investigates humans' cognitive, emotional, and behavioral adaption to physical, interpersonal, economic, and political environments. This article summarizes three types of socioecological psychology research: (a) association studies that link an aspect of social ecology (e.g., population density) with psychology (e.g., prosocial behavior), (b) process studies that clarify why there is an association between social ecology and psychology (e.g., residential mobility→anxiety→familiarity seeking), and (c) niche construction studies that illuminate how psychological states give rise to the creation and maintenance of a social ecology (e.g., familiarity seeking→dominance of national chain stores). Socioecological psychology attempts to bring the objectivist perspective to psychological science, investigating how objective social and physical environments, not just perception and construal of the environments, affect one's thinking, feeling, and behaviors, as well as how people's thinking, feeling, and behaviors give rise to social and built environments. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology Volume 65 is January 03, 2014. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.
It is widely recognized that social relationships and affiliation have powerful effects on physical and mental health. When investigators write about the impact of social relationships on health, many terms are used loosely and interchangeably including social networks, social ties and social integration. The aim of this paper is to clarify these terms using a single framework. We discuss: (1) theoretical orientations from diverse disciplines which we believe are fundamental to advancing research in this area; (2) a set of definitions accompanied by major assessment tools; and (3) an overarching model which integrates multilevel phenomena.Theoretical orientations that we draw upon were developed by Durkheim whose work on social integration and suicide are seminal and John Bowlby, a psychiatrist who developed attachment theory in relation to child development and contemporary social network theorists.We present a conceptual model of how social networks impact health. We envision a cascading causal process beginning with the macro-social to psychobiological processes that are dynamically linked together to form the processes by which social integration effects health. We start by embedding social networks in a larger social and cultural context in which upstream forces are seen to condition network structure. Serious consideration of the larger macro-social context in which networks form and are sustained has been lacking in all but a small number of studies and is almost completely absent in studies of social network influences on health.We then move downstream to understand the influences network structure and function have on social and interpersonal behavior. We argue that networks operate at the behavioral level through four primary pathways: (1) provision of social support; (2) social influence; (3) on social engagement and attachment; and (4) access to resources and material goods.
Volumes of research show that people in different geographic regions differ psychologically. Most of that work converges on the conclusion that there are geographic differences in personality and values, but little attention has been paid to developing an integrative account of how those differences emerge, persist, and become expressed at the geographic level. Drawing from research in psychology and other social sciences, we present a theoretical account of the mechanisms through which geographic variation in psychological characteristics emerge and persist within regions, and we propose a model for conceptualizing the processes through which such characteristics become expressed in geographic social indicators. The proposed processes were examined in the context of theory and research on personality traits. Hypotheses derived from the model were tested using personality data from over half a million U.S. residents. Results provided preliminary support for the model, revealing clear patterns of regional variation across the U.S. and strong relationships between state-level personality and geographic indicators of crime, social capital, religiosity, political values, employment, and health. Overall, this work highlights the potential insights generated by including macrolevel perspectives within psychology and suggests new routes to bridging theory and research across several disciplines in the social sciences.
© 2008 Association for Psychological Science.
Past studies in the UK and the Netherlands indicate that loneliness varies significantly according to characteristics of older
people’s residential environment. This raises questions regarding potential neighbourhood influences on individuals’ social
relationships in later life. This article examines neighbourhood influences on loneliness, using multiple classification analysis
on comparable empirical data collected in the UK and the Netherlands. UK data arise from a survey of 501 people aged 60+ in
deprived neighbourhoods of three English cities. Netherlands data derive from the NESTOR Living Arrangements and Social Network
survey, with a sub-sample of 3,508 people aged 60+ drawn from a nationally representative sample of older people, living in
11 municipalities. Both surveys incorporated the 11-item De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale. In addition to neighbourhood characteristics
and indicators of health and social embeddedness, a typology of eight groups of persons was developed that accounted for individuals’
age, sex, and partner status. While 13% of participants in the UK were severely lonely, the proportion in the Netherlands
was just four per cent. Mean loneliness scores in the UK varied significantly between the neighbourhoods under investigation.
Additionally, the evaluated quality of the residential neighbourhood accounted for a relatively large degree of variance in
loneliness in both countries.
Epidemiologists and public health researchers are studying neighborhood's effect on individual health. The health of older adults may be more influenced by their neighborhoods as a result of decreased mobility. However, research on neighborhood's influence on older adults' health, specifically, is limited.
Recent studies on neighborhood and health for older adults were identified. Studies were identified through searches of databases including PsycINFO, CINAHL, PubMed, Academic Search Premier, Ageline, Social Science Citation Index, and Health Source. Criteria for inclusion were as follows: human studies; English language; study sample included adults aged > or =55 years; health outcomes, including mental health, health behaviors, morbidity, and mortality; neighborhood as the primary exposure variable of interest; empirical research; and studies that included > or =10 neighborhoods. Air pollution studies were excluded. Five hundred thirty-eight relevant articles were published during 1997-2007; a total of 33 of these articles met inclusion criteria.
The measures of objective and perceived aspects of neighborhood were summarized. Neighborhood was primarily operationalized using census-defined boundaries. Measures of neighborhood were principally derived from objective sources of data; eight studies assessed perceived neighborhood alone or in combination with objective measures. Six categories of neighborhood characteristics were socioeconomic composition, racial composition, demographics, perceived resources and/or problems, physical environment, and social environment. The studies are primarily cross-sectional and use administrative data to characterize neighborhood.
These studies suggest that neighborhood environment is important for older adults' health and functioning.
Social species, from Drosophila melanogaster to Homo sapiens, fare poorly when isolated. Homo sapiens, an irrepressibly meaning-making species, are, in normal circumstances, dramatically affected by perceived social isolation. Research indicates that perceived social isolation (i.e. loneliness) is a risk factor for, and may contribute to, poorer overall cognitive performance, faster cognitive decline, poorer executive functioning, increased negativity and depressive cognition, heightened sensitivity to social threats, a confirmatory bias in social cognition that is self-protective and paradoxically self-defeating, heightened anthropomorphism and contagion that threatens social cohesion. These differences in attention and cognition impact on emotions, decisions, behaviors and interpersonal interactions that can contribute to the association between loneliness and cognitive decline and between loneliness and morbidity more generally.
This study explored whether social contacts are an underlying mechanism behind the relationship between green space and health. We measured social contacts and health in 10,089 residents of the Netherlands and calculated the percentage of green within 1 and a 3km radius around the postal code coordinates for each individual's address. After adjustment for socio-economic and demographic characteristics, less green space in people's living environment coincided with feelings of loneliness and with perceived shortage of social support. Loneliness and perceived shortage of social support partly mediated the relation between green space and health.
Neighborhood context could affect health behaviors because of structure or contagion. We expected that residents of US neighborhoods where a high percentage of residents are poor and do not have college degrees would be more likely to smoke and less likely to walk and exercise. We examined the hypotheses using multi-level data in which survey information from a representative sample of Illinois residents is linked to census-tract information about poverty and education in their neighborhood. Contrary to expectations we found that residents of poor neighborhoods were more likely to walk than those in less disadvantaged places, adjusting for individual poverty, household income, education, race, ethnicity, sex, age, and marital status. This was the case despite the fact that residents of poor neighborhoods were more afraid to leave the house and feared being victimized on the streets. Consistent with expectations we found that residents of neighborhoods where a high percentage of residents are college educated are more likely to walk. Thus, the two aspects of neighborhood socioeconomic status had opposite effects on walking. Neighborhood context had no effect on the likelihood of exercising strenuously. Men in poor neighborhoods were more likely to smoke than those in less disadvantaged places, but neighborhood context had no significant effect on women's likelihood of smoking.
It is widely recognized that social relationships and affiliation have powerful effects on physical and mental health. When investigators write about the impact of social relationships on health, many terms are used loosely and interchangeably including social networks, social ties and social integration. The aim of this paper is to clarify these terms using a single framework. We discuss: (1) theoretical orientations from diverse disciplines which we believe are fundamental to advancing research in this area; (2) a set of definitions accompanied by major assessment tools; and (3) an overarching model which integrates multilevel phenomena. Theoretical orientations that we draw upon were developed by Durkheim whose work on social integration and suicide are seminal and John Bowlby, a psychiatrist who developed attachment theory in relation to child development and contemporary social network theorists. We present a conceptual model of how social networks impact health. We envision a cascading causal process beginning with the macro-social to psychobiological processes that are dynamically linked together to form the processes by which social integration effects health. We start by embedding social networks in a larger social and cultural context in which upstream forces are seen to condition network structure. Serious consideration of the larger macro-social context in which networks form and are sustained has been lacking in all but a small number of studies and is almost completely absent in studies of social network influences on health. We then move downstream to understand the influences network structure and function have on social and interpersonal behavior. We argue that networks operate at the behavioral level through four primary pathways: (1) provision of social support; (2) social influence; (3) on social engagement and attachment; and (4) access to resources and material goods.
Most research on access to health care focuses on individual-level determinants such as income and insurance coverage. The role of community-level factors in helping or hindering individuals in obtaining needed care, however, has not received much attention. We address this gap in the literature by examining how neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with access to health care. We find that living in disadvantaged neighborhoods reduces the likelihood of having a usual source of care and of obtaining recommended preventive services, while it increases the likelihood of having unmet medical need. These associations are not explained by the supply of health care providers. Furthermore, though controlling for individual-level characteristics reduces the association between neighborhood disadvantage and access to health care, a significant association remains. This suggests that when individuals who are disadvantaged are concentrated into specific areas, disadvantage becomes an "emergent characteristic " of those areas that predicts the ability of residents to obtain health care.
Identification of clusters-An actor-based approach (Working Papers on Innovation and Space No. 02.17). Philipps-Universität Marburg
- T Brenner
Brenner, T. (2017). Identification of clusters-An actor-based
approach (Working Papers on Innovation and Space No. 02.17).
Philipps-Universität Marburg.
Subjective well-being in context: County- and state-level socioeconomic factors and individual moderators
- M Luhmann
- J C Murdoch
- L C Hawkley
Luhmann, M., Murdoch, J. C., & Hawkley, L. C. (2015). Subjective
well-being in context: County-and state-level socioeconomic
factors and individual moderators. Social Psychological and
Personality Science, 6(2), 148-156. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1948550614548075
Loneliness in older adults in the USA and Germany: Measurement invariance and validation
- L C Hawkley
- R Duvoisin
- J Ackva
- J C Murdoch
- M Luhmann
Hawkley, L. C., Duvoisin, R., Ackva, J., Murdoch, J. C., & Luhmann,
M. (2015). Loneliness in older adults in the USA and Germany:
Measurement invariance and validation (NORC Working Paper
Series No. 2015-002). NORC at the University of Chicago.
A short scale for measuring loneliness in large surveys
- M Hughes
- L Waite
- L C Hawkley
- J Cacioppo
Hughes, M., Waite, L., Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. (2004). A short
scale for measuring loneliness in large surveys. Research on Aging,
26(6), 655-672. https://doi.org/10.1177/0164027504268574