Scottish researchers suggest that those who socialise regularly with friends or family outside their household live longer than those who never do, according to their study of more than 450 000 people in the UK.
Additionally, they found that never being visited by friends of family can increase the risk, even for people who don’t live alone.
The finding suggests that some social connections have a greater impact on health than others, reports New Scientist.
Previous research has linked social isolation to poorer health, but little is known about how different social connections influence longevity.
For their study, Hamish Foster at the University of Glasgow and colleagues collected data on socialisation and loneliness from more than 450 000 people between 38 and 73-years-old living in the UK. About 55% of them were women and almost 96% were white.
Between 2006 and 2010, all of the participants completed a one-time physical health assessment and questionnaire measuring five different types of social connection. The questionnaire asked how often they felt lonely, could confide in someone close, had friends or family visit and participated in weekly group activities.
It also asked if they lived alone.
The researchers then tracked the participants to find out how many had died by 2021.
After adjusting for factors including age, sex, physical activity level, socio-economic status and chronic health conditions, the researchers found that all five types of social connection impacted longevity. The frequency of visits from friends and family had the greatest influence.
On average, people whose friends or family never visited had a 39% increased risk of dying during the study period compared with those whose loved ones visited daily. Even those who didn’t live alone had a 25% greater risk of death in this time if friends or family never visited.
Participation in weekly group activities didn’t mitigate these effects, either, reports the study, published in the journal BMC.
The findings could be due to relationship quality. “Some relationships can be negative,” said Foster. “So, you could live with one other person, but the relationship quality is poor.”
Regular visits from loved ones may be crucial in this scenario.
The team also found that the risk of dying during the period was about the same for those whose loved ones visited monthly, weekly or daily. “Just having monthly visits seems to be enough,” Foster added.
Study details
Social connection and mortality in UK Biobank: a prospective cohort analysis
Hamish Foster, Jason Gill, Frances Mair, Carlos Celis-Morales, Bhautesh Jani, Barbara Nicholl, Duncan Lee & Catherine O’Donnell.
Published in BMC on 10 November 2023
Abstract
Background
Components of social connection are associated with mortality, but research examining their independent and combined effects in the same dataset is lacking. This study aimed to examine the independent and combined associations between functional and structural components of social connection and mortality.
Methods
Analysis of 458,146 participants with full data from the UK Biobank cohort linked to mortality registers. Social connection was assessed using two functional (frequency of ability to confide in someone close and often feeling lonely) and three structural (frequency of friends/family visits, weekly group activities, and living alone) component measures. Cox proportional hazard models were used to examine the associations with all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality.
Results
Over a median of 12.6 years (IQR 11.9–13.3) follow-up, 33,135 (7.2%) participants died, including 5112 (1.1%) CVD deaths. All social connection measures were independently associated with both outcomes. Friends/family visit frequencies < monthly were associated with a higher risk of mortality indicating a threshold effect. There were interactions between living alone and friends/family visits and between living alone and weekly group activity. For example, compared with daily friends/family visits-not living alone, there was higher all-cause mortality for daily visits-living alone (HR 1.19 [95% CI 1.12–1.26]), for never having visits-not living alone (1.33 [1.22–1.46]), and for never having visits-living alone (1.77 [1.61–1.95]). Never having friends/family visits whilst living alone potentially counteracted benefits from other components as mortality risks were highest for those reporting both never having visits and living alone regardless of weekly group activity or functional components. When all measures were combined into overall functional and structural components, there was an interaction between components: compared with participants defined as not isolated by both components, those considered isolated by both components had higher CVD mortality (HR 1.63 [1.51–1.76]) than each component alone (functional isolation 1.17 [1.06–1.29]; structural isolation 1.27 [1.18–1.36]).
Conclusions
This work suggests (1) a potential threshold effect for friends/family visits, (2) that those who live alone with additional concurrent markers of structural isolation may represent a high-risk population, (3) that beneficial associations for some types of social connection might not be felt when other types of social connection are absent, and (4) considering both functional and structural components of social connection may help to identify the most isolated in society.
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