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Examining individual and geographic factors associated with social isolation and loneliness using Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) data

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 (ru...

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Autores principales: Menec, Verena H., Newall, Nancy E., Mackenzie, Corey S., Shooshtari, Shahin, Nowicki, Scott
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6358157/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30707719
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211143
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author Menec, Verena H.
Newall, Nancy E.
Mackenzie, Corey S.
Shooshtari, Shahin
Nowicki, Scott
author_facet Menec, Verena H.
Newall, Nancy E.
Mackenzie, Corey S.
Shooshtari, Shahin
Nowicki, Scott
author_sort Menec, Verena H.
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-63581572019-02-22 Examining individual and geographic factors associated with social isolation and loneliness using Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) data Menec, Verena H. Newall, Nancy E. Mackenzie, Corey S. Shooshtari, Shahin Nowicki, Scott PLoS One Research Article 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. Public Library of Science 2019-02-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6358157/ /pubmed/30707719 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211143 Text en © 2019 Menec et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Menec, Verena H.
Newall, Nancy E.
Mackenzie, Corey S.
Shooshtari, Shahin
Nowicki, Scott
Examining individual and geographic factors associated with social isolation and loneliness using Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) data
title Examining individual and geographic factors associated with social isolation and loneliness using Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) data
title_full Examining individual and geographic factors associated with social isolation and loneliness using Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) data
title_fullStr Examining individual and geographic factors associated with social isolation and loneliness using Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) data
title_full_unstemmed Examining individual and geographic factors associated with social isolation and loneliness using Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) data
title_short Examining individual and geographic factors associated with social isolation and loneliness using Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) data
title_sort examining individual and geographic factors associated with social isolation and loneliness using canadian longitudinal study on aging (clsa) data
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6358157/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30707719
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211143
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