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The association between social capital and loneliness in different age groups: a population-based study in Western Finland

BACKGROUND: Previous studies of loneliness have largely focused on establishing risk factors in specific age groups such as in later life or in young people. Researchers have paid less attention to the link between social capital and loneliness across different age groups. The aim of this study was...

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Autores principales: Nyqvist, Fredrica, Victor, Christina R., Forsman, Anna K., Cattan, Mima
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4940959/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27400659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3248-x
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author Nyqvist, Fredrica
Victor, Christina R.
Forsman, Anna K.
Cattan, Mima
author_facet Nyqvist, Fredrica
Victor, Christina R.
Forsman, Anna K.
Cattan, Mima
author_sort Nyqvist, Fredrica
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Previous studies of loneliness have largely focused on establishing risk factors in specific age groups such as in later life or in young people. Researchers have paid less attention to the link between social capital and loneliness across different age groups. The aim of this study was to examine the association between social capital and experienced loneliness in different age groups in a Finnish setting. METHODS: The data originates from a population-based cross-sectional survey conducted among 4618 people aged 15–80 in Western Finland in 2011. The response rate was 46.2 %. The association between social capital, measured by frequency of social contacts, participation in organisational activities, trust and sense of belonging to the neighbourhood and loneliness was tested by logistic regression analyses stratified by four age groups. RESULTS: Frequent loneliness (defined as experienced often or sometimes) was higher among younger people (39.5 %) compared to older people (27.3 %). Low levels of trust were linked to loneliness in all four age groups. The association between other aspects of social capital and loneliness varied across age groups. CONCLUSIONS: Frequent loneliness is common among the general adult population and could be seen as a public health issue. Our findings imply that low social capital, especially in terms of low trust, may be a risk factor for loneliness. However, further research is needed to assess the influence of poor health and reverse causality as explanations for the findings.
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spelling pubmed-49409592016-07-13 The association between social capital and loneliness in different age groups: a population-based study in Western Finland Nyqvist, Fredrica Victor, Christina R. Forsman, Anna K. Cattan, Mima BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Previous studies of loneliness have largely focused on establishing risk factors in specific age groups such as in later life or in young people. Researchers have paid less attention to the link between social capital and loneliness across different age groups. The aim of this study was to examine the association between social capital and experienced loneliness in different age groups in a Finnish setting. METHODS: The data originates from a population-based cross-sectional survey conducted among 4618 people aged 15–80 in Western Finland in 2011. The response rate was 46.2 %. The association between social capital, measured by frequency of social contacts, participation in organisational activities, trust and sense of belonging to the neighbourhood and loneliness was tested by logistic regression analyses stratified by four age groups. RESULTS: Frequent loneliness (defined as experienced often or sometimes) was higher among younger people (39.5 %) compared to older people (27.3 %). Low levels of trust were linked to loneliness in all four age groups. The association between other aspects of social capital and loneliness varied across age groups. CONCLUSIONS: Frequent loneliness is common among the general adult population and could be seen as a public health issue. Our findings imply that low social capital, especially in terms of low trust, may be a risk factor for loneliness. However, further research is needed to assess the influence of poor health and reverse causality as explanations for the findings. BioMed Central 2016-07-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4940959/ /pubmed/27400659 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3248-x Text en © Nyqvist et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Nyqvist, Fredrica
Victor, Christina R.
Forsman, Anna K.
Cattan, Mima
The association between social capital and loneliness in different age groups: a population-based study in Western Finland
title The association between social capital and loneliness in different age groups: a population-based study in Western Finland
title_full The association between social capital and loneliness in different age groups: a population-based study in Western Finland
title_fullStr The association between social capital and loneliness in different age groups: a population-based study in Western Finland
title_full_unstemmed The association between social capital and loneliness in different age groups: a population-based study in Western Finland
title_short The association between social capital and loneliness in different age groups: a population-based study in Western Finland
title_sort association between social capital and loneliness in different age groups: a population-based study in western finland
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4940959/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27400659
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3248-x
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