Harling, G;
Kobayashi, LC;
Farrell, MT;
Wagner, RG;
Tollman, S;
Berkman, L;
(2020)
Social contact, social support, and cognitive health in a population-based study of middle-aged and older men and women in rural South Africa.
Social Science & Medicine
, 260
, Article 113167. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113167.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Several theories seek to explain how social connections and cognitive function are interconnected in older age. These include that social interaction protects against cognitive decline, that cognitive decline leads to shedding of social connections and that cognitive decline leads to increased instrumental support. We investigated how patterns of social contact, social support and cognitive health in rural South Africa fit with these three theories. METHOD: We used data from the baseline of "Health and Aging in Africa: a Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH community in South Africa" (HAALSI), a population-based study of 5059 individuals aged ≥ 40 years. We evaluated how a range of egocentric social connectedness measures varied by respondents' cognitive function. RESULTS: We found that respondents with lower cognitive function had smaller, denser social networks that were more local and more kin-based than their peers. Lower cognitive function was associated with receipt of less social support generally, but this difference was stronger for emotional and informational support than for financial and physical support. Impairment was associated with greater differences among those aged 40-59 and those with any (versus no) educational attainment. CONCLUSIONS: The patterns we found suggest that cognitively impaired older adults in this setting rely on their core social networks for support, and that theories relating to social connectedness and cognitive function developed in higher-income and higher-education settings may also apply in lower-resource settings elsewhere.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Social contact, social support, and cognitive health in a population-based study of middle-aged and older men and women in rural South Africa |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113167 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113167 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Cognitive function, Cognitive impairment, Social networks, Social support, Educational attainment, GenderSouth Africa |
| 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 for Global Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10106885 |
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