IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v74y2019i6p1053-1061..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Relationships and Salivary Telomere Length Among Middle-Aged and Older African American and White Adults

Author

Listed:
  • Karen D Lincoln
  • Donald A Lloyd
  • Ann W Nguyen
  • Deborah CarrPhDDecision Editor

Abstract

ObjectivesA common mechanism underlying premature morbidity may be accelerated biological aging as reflected by salivary telomere length (STL). This study examined the extent to which social relationships, both positive and negative, can be protective or confer risk relative to biological aging.MethodData from the Health and Retirement Study and multiple regression were used to examine cross-sectional associations between STL, self-reported social support, and negative interaction (e.g., conflict, criticism) with family in a nationally representative sample of African American and non-Hispanic White middle-aged and older adults (N = 4,080).ResultsSocial support from family was associated with shorter STL. Negative interaction with family had no main effect on STL but interactions characterized by high social support and more frequent negative interactions were associated with longer STL. Negative interaction with family was negatively associated with STL for African Americans and Whites but the magnitude of the effect was greater for African Americans.DiscussionStudy findings highlight the role of social relationships in physiological deterioration among middle-aged and older adults and identify a potential mechanism whereby race is linked to accelerated biological aging. Findings highlight the importance of considering positive and negative aspects of social relationships to understand the consequences of social connections for cellular aging in diverse populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Karen D Lincoln & Donald A Lloyd & Ann W Nguyen & Deborah CarrPhDDecision Editor, 2019. "Social Relationships and Salivary Telomere Length Among Middle-Aged and Older African American and White Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 74(6), pages 1053-1061.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:74:y:2019:i:6:p:1053-1061.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbx049
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:74:y:2019:i:6:p:1053-1061.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.