Reciprocal Effects Between Health and Social Support in Older Adults’ Relationships
With Their Children and Friends
Jung-Hwa Ha | Department of Social Welfare, Seoul National University
Sang Kyoung Kahng | Department of Social Welfare, Seoul National University
Namkee Choi | School of Social Work, University of Texas, Austin
This study examined the longitudinal reciprocal effects between health and social support in older adults’ relationships with their children and friends. Data are from the 2006 and 2010 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N ¼ 3,760). We focused on three specific aspects of social support: frequency of contact, positive interactions, and negative interactions. We used autoregressive cross-lagged models to examine the bidirectional effects between social support and health. When the bidirectional effects between health and social support were simultaneously examined, the longitudinal effect of social support on health was not significant. In contrast, older adults’ poor health was associated with
decreased contact and decreased positive interactions with friends as well as with increased negative interactions with their adult children and friends. The findings suggest that older adults’ poor health has a negative impact on their social relationships and that such effect surpasses the impact of social relationships on health.
Keywords: health, social support, social relationships, autoregressive cross-lagged
models
Research on Aging 2017, Vol. 39(2) 300–321 DOI: 10.1177/0164027515611182