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Purpose: Physical activity (PA) has considerable public health benefits. Positive aspects of the interpersonal environment are known to affect PA, yet few studies have investigated whether negative dimensions also influence PA. This study examines the link between changing social network negativity and PA, net of stable confounding characteristics of persons and their environments. Method: Polling respondents in the San Francisco Bay Area over three waves (2015–2018), the UCNets project provides a panel study of social networks and health for two cohorts of adults. Respondents were recruited through stratified random address sampling, and supplemental sampling was conducted through Facebook advertising and referral. With weights, the sample is approximately representative of Californians aged 21–30 and 50–70. Personal social networks were measured using multiple name-generating questions. Fixed effects ordered logistic regression models provide parameter estimates. Results: Younger adults experience significant decreases in PA when network negativity increases, while changes in other network characteristics (e.g. support, size) did not significantly predict changes in PA. No corresponding association was found for older adults. Results are net of baseline covariate levels, stable social and individual differences, and select time-varying characteristics of persons and their environments. Conclusion: Leveraging longitudinal data from two cohorts of adults, this study extends understanding on interpersonal environments and PA by considering the social costs embedded in social networks. This is the first study to investigate how changes in network negativity pattern PA change. Interventions that help young adults resolve or manage interpersonal conflicts may have the benefit of helping to promote healthy lifestyle choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Political participation differs across the age range, but little is known about these patterns outside of developed countries. Political context is a particularly important consideration for all political behavior in Africa, where only a few countries are fully democratic. Drawing from political opportunity structures theory, we investigate how political freedom conditions the age-based pattern of electoral and nonelectoral political engagement, as well as protesting. Methods This study merges the fifth, sixth, and seventh rounds of the Afrobarometer data sets, spanning 36 African countries, with country-level data on political freedom from Freedom House. Using multilevel regression models, we examine how political freedom shapes the relationship between age and 3 forms of political participation. Results Africans aged from 18 to 60 years and living in nonfree countries are most engaged in electoral and nonelectoral political activities, though participation begins to drop markedly past age 60. For protest participation, young Africans living in partially and non-free countries are the most engaged in protests; yet limited political freedom again means a sharp age-based decline. Discussion The impact of political context on the age–participation association is nuanced in ways not anticipated by mainstream research on the developed West. Repressive regimes, while spurring engagement at younger ages, appear to disproportionately deter older Africans from political engagement, especially its riskiest forms. We conclude by calling for more country-comparative gerontological research with careful attention to contextual heterogeneity, particularly in the understudied Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Research among older adults reveals that the loss of core network members is a risk factor for loneliness. Still, it is not clear whether all such losses induce similar levels of loneliness, particularly as network members are distributed at varied geographic distances. Neither is it clear whether tie addition—the other ubiquitous aspect of network turnover in later life—offsets the loneliness that arises from different network loss scenarios. Methods This paper scrutinized core network losses across multiple relationship–distance scenarios. We used the fourth and sixth waves of data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe and estimated fixed-effect models. Results The loss of a child from a core network increases feelings of loneliness across variant distances, especially when not complemented by additional connections. Losing relatives or nonkin core connections in proximity (within 1 km and 5 km radius, respectively) is also associated with increased loneliness, yet such effects are also largely mitigated by the addition of new core network members. Discussion The relationship between core network member losses and loneliness can significantly differ based on the nature of the lost connection and its geographic distance. Active rebalancing of one's core network following losses and proactive network expansion can serve as pivotal strategies to prevent loneliness for the aging population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College-educated adults are healthier than other people in the United States, but selection bias complicates our understanding of how education influences health. This article focuses on the possibility that the health benefits of college may vary according to childhood (mis)fortune and people's propensity to attain a college degree in the first place. Several perspectives from life course sociology offer competing hypotheses as to whether the most or the least advantaged see the greatest return of a college education. The authors use a national survey of middle-age American adults to assess risk of two cardiovascular health problems and mortality. Results from propensity score and hierarchical regression analysis indicate that the protective effect of college attainment is indeed heterogeneous. Further, the greatest returns are among those least likely to experience this life course transition (i.e., compensatory leveling). Explanations for this selection effect are offered, along with several directions for future research on the health benefits of completing college.

Despite the recent and rapid worldwide rise in body mass index (BMI), little empirical research outside the developed world has systematically considered the role of cohorts in inaugurating emergent biomorphic disparities. This study integrates aspects of the life course perspective (attention to age- and cohort-level influences) with fundamental cause theory to investigate how BMI differences have unfurled in the Chinese population. We analyze growth-curve models of adults in the China Health and Nutrition Survey. The results indicate that more recent cohorts have higher levels of BMI and, among women, experience a steeper rate of age-related BMI growth. Moreover, biomorphic change has unfolded in complex ways related to social conditions across successive cohorts. The most pronounced changes are observed among women, who demonstrate an emerging disparity in BMI levels on the basis of education and urban versus rural residence. (Contains 2 tables, 2 figures and 6 notes.)

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine whether childhood misfortune reduces the likelihood of being disease free in adulthood. Design and Methods: This article used a sample of 3,000+ American adults, aged 25-74, who were first interviewed in 1995 and reinterviewed in 2005. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of avoiding disease at the first wave and remaining disease free a decade later. Results: Consistent with a life course view of successful aging, higher levels of childhood misfortune (e.g., abuse, financial strain) are associated with a lower probability of disease avoidance. This pattern was observed across a large set of chronic conditions and in multivariate analyses spanning both waves of the study. Implications: Childhood misfortune has approximately equal consequences for adult disease avoidance as does the combined effect of moderate lifetime smoking and obesity. Efforts to alleviate adverse experiences for children may have long-term benefits for successful aging.

Obesity is widely recognized as a health risk, but it also represents a disadvantaged social position. Viewing body weight within the framework of stigma and its effects on life chances, we examine how perceived weight-based discrimination influences identity and physical health. Using national survey data with a 10-year longitudinal follow-up, we consider whether perceptions of weight discrimination shape weight perceptions, whether perceived weight discrimination exacerbates the health risks of obesity, and whether weight perceptions are the mechanism explaining why perceived weight discrimination is damaging to health. Perceived weight discrimination is found to be harmful, increasing the health risks of obesity associated with functional disability and, to a lesser degree, self-rated health. Findings also reveal that weight-based stigma shapes weight perceptions, which mediate the relationship between perceived discrimination and health. (Contains 5 tables and 8 footnotes.)

The passage of time is fundamentally experienced through people's interaction with their social worlds. Life-course scholars acknowledge the multiple aspects of time-based experience but have given little attention to age identity in a dynamic context. Drawing from a stress-process model, we expected that turbulence within people's family relations and health declines would produce increases in subjective age. Family role transitions were also examined as potential factors that would hasten subjective aging, but only to the extent that they produced stress. We used the Midlife Development in the United States study, a nationally representative longitudinal survey. Regression results show that turbulence within one's family accelerated age identity and that the effect of diminishing psychosocial resources explained this relationship. For the most part, however, changes within family roles did not affect age identity. On the other hand, the incidence of chronic health problems increased subjective ages, and this relationship too was mediated by the depletion of psychosocial resources. The findings demonstrate an interconnection between the stress process and age identity. Broadening our conception of time-based experience with attention to the stress process offers exciting directions for future theory and research in life course sociology. (Contains 3 tables and 7 footnotes.)

Consistent with a new genre of research on life-course analyses of health-service use, this study explores the consequences of long-term exposure to a risk factor. Drawing from cumulative-disadvantage theory, the study examines whether obesity, especially chronic obesity, increases hospitalization admission and length of stay. Analyses make use of hospital records abstracted over 20 years from a national survey of adults 41 to 77 years of age at baseline (n = 4,574). Multiple measures of body weight are used to calculate adult obesity duration. Results reveal that obesity increased hospital admissions and length of stay over the 20 years studied. Among persons obese at any time during the study, years of obesity also led to longer stays. The findings highlight the utility of measures of the duration of risk exposure for both life-course studies of health and tests of cumulative-disadvantage theory. (Contains 4 notes and 3 tables.)

Objectives People's partners and spouses often provide a wide range of essential emotional and practical support. As crucial as they may be, a nontrivial segment of the older population appears to limit close discussions to their partner alone, a phenomenon we term "partner network exclusivity." This network structure could leave people vulnerable to partner losses and subsequent social isolation. The present research has 3 aims: (a) examine the prevalence of partner-exclusive networks among European older adults; (b) consider who is most likely to inhabit such networks; and (c) investigate whether and how individuals in such precarious networks rebalance them in case of partner losses. Methods The analysis uses Wave 4 (2011) and Wave 6 (2015) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to perform logistic regression on one's possession of partner-exclusive networks and the addition of core ties. Results More than a quarter of partnered respondents (28.1%) are in partner-exclusive core networks. Men, childless individuals, and those with financial difficulties are most likely to occupy such networks. Individuals in partner exclusivity are especially likely to enlist additional ties upon partner loss. Nevertheless, men and individuals at early old age are relatively unlikely to rebalance their core networks in case of partner death. Discussion This study provides new evidence that network replenishment following relationship disruptions is plausible even for those from precarious network settings. Nevertheless, widowhood produces patterns of vulnerability for a subset of older adults in partner-exclusive core networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from theory and research on the role of social networks in promoting or undermining preventative public health measures, this article considers how structural, compositional and functional aspects of older adults' close social networks are associated with HIV testing in the context of rural South Africa. Analyses use data from the population-based Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI) – a sample of rural adults age 40+ (N = 4,660). Results from multiple logistic regression show older South African adults with larger, more heavily non-kin and more literate networks were most likely to report testing for HIV. People whose network members provided frequent information were also most likely to be tested, though interaction effects indicate that this pattern is primarily found among those with highly literate networks. Taken together, the findings reinforce a key insight from social capital perspectives: network resourcefulness – literacy in particular – is crucial for promoting preventative health practice. The synergy between network literacy and informational support reveals the complex interplay between network characteristics in shaping health-seeking behaviour. Continued research is needed on the connection between networks and HIV testing among sub-Saharan older adults, as this population is not currently well served by many public health efforts in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives Expectations across a variety of life domains appear to shape the aging process, giving weight to the role of self-fulfilling prophecies in later life. Sexuality is one area where the power of expectations is not well-understood. We investigated whether 10-year sexual expectations were associated with sexual satisfaction and sexual frequency a decade on among older heterosexual coupled adults. We further examined whether sexual expectations could offset the sex-constraining impact of functional limitation onset. Research Design and Methods We used 3 waves of the Midlife Development in the United States study (1995, 2005, 2014), a nationally representative panel survey. Analyses consider adults aged 45+ in 1995 who had a spouse or romantic partner at 2 consecutive waves. Associations between sexual expectations and eventual sexual satisfaction and frequency were estimated with multivariable generalized estimating equations. Moderation analyses examined whether between-wave onset of functional limitations had less influence on sexuality outcomes when combined with a high initial level of sexual expectations. Results Sexually optimistic participants reported more sexual satisfaction and higher sexual frequency a decade later. Though the onset of functional limitations tended to suppress sexual frequency for women, the probability of having weekly sex was significantly higher among such women if they had high rather than low sexual expectations. Discussion and Implications Results suggest that, similar to other life domains, expectations shape the sexual experience of older adults. Clinicians and care providers may consider ways to help foster realistic optimism about sexuality among older men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing evidence points to the salience of early life experiences in shaping health inequalities, but scant research has considered the role of institutional resources as buffers in this relationship. Health care systems in particular are an understudied yet important context for the generation of inequalities from childhood into adulthood. This research investigates associations between childhood disadvantage and adult morbidity and examines the role of health care system quality in this relationship. We also consider the role of adult socioeconomic status. We merge individual-level data on major disease (2014 European Social Survey) with nation-level health care indicators. Results across subjective and objective approaches to health care system quality are similar, indicating a reduced association between childhood socioeconomic status and adult disease in countries with higher quality health care. In total, our results reiterate the long-term influence of childhood disadvantage on health while suggesting health care's specific role as an institutional resource for ameliorating life course health inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]