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Community group membership and multidimensional subjective well-being in older age

Fancourt, D; Steptoe, A; (2018) Community group membership and multidimensional subjective well-being in older age. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health , 72 (5) pp. 376-382. 10.1136/jech-2017-210260. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: It has been highlighted as a public health priority to identify ways of supporting well-being in older age to allow people to lead healthy and integrated lifestyles. This study explored whether membership in eight different sorts of community groups was associated with enhanced experienced, evaluative and eudemonic well-being among older adults. METHODS: We analysed data from 2548 adults aged 55+ drawn from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging. We used multivariate logistic and linear regression models to compare change in well-being between baseline and follow-up 10 years later in relation to membership of different community groups while controlling for potential confounding variables. RESULTS: Membership in two types of community groups was associated with enhanced well-being: attending education, arts or music classes was longitudinally associated with lower negative affect (OR 0.73, CI 0.57 to 0.92) and life satisfaction (β 0.55, CI 0.02 to 1.08) while church or religious group membership was longitudinally associated with lower negative affect (OR 0.79, CI 0.65 to 0.98) and higher positive affect (OR 1.54, CI 1.25 to 1.90). There was no evidence of reverse causality through cross-lagged analyses. However, just 17.4% and 24.6% of older adults were found to engage in these two types of community groups, respectively, and several demographic factors were identified as barriers to participation. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, this study suggests that education, arts or music classes and church or religious groups may support well-being in older age. Programmes to encourage engagement could be designed for older adults who may not normally access these community resources.

Type: Article
Title: Community group membership and multidimensional subjective well-being in older age
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1136/jech-2017-210260
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2017-210260
Language: English
Additional information: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords: Psychosocial factors, quality of life, social activities
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Behavioural Science and Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10044153
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