OBJECTIVES:Momentary feelings of safety carry significant implications for well-being in later life. Yet the role of social and built environments beyond residential neighborhoods remains underexplored. We investigated how dynamic social and physical features and spatial knowledge of activity spaces affect older adults' in situ feelings of safety. METHODS:Using unique data from the Chicago Health and Activity in Real-Time (CHART) study, we analyzed 5,833 geolocated ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) from 93 older adults. We linked EMA locations to Google Street View Images to measure streetscape features and Advan mobility flows to capture spatial knowledge. We estimated race-stratified multilevel models with EMAs nested within respondents and used a within-between decomposition to distinguish momentary exposure from between-person differences in average exposure. RESULTS:Momentary safety varied substantially across contexts, with distinct racial patterns. Being outdoors reduced safety for both race groups. White respondents reported lower safety in areas predominantly Black and of low socioeconomic status (SES) but greater safety in racially mixed, higher-SES neighborhoods. In contrast, Black respondents felt less safe in racially mixed and affluent White neighborhoods, reflecting varied experiences of being socially out of place. Physical disorder and built-environment cues predicted safety only among Whites, indicating that the meaning of disorder is socially conditioned rather than universal. Across both groups, spatial knowledge consistently increased perceived safety. DISCUSSION:Findings underscore the situational and racialized nature of safety in later life. While White older adults' safety perceptions respond to visible streetscape cues, Black older adults' perceptions reflect broader structural and contextual neighborhood characteristics.
OBJECTIVES:Older civilian hostages are often framed as vulnerable, yet little age-specific evidence describes how they cope during captivity. This qualitative study examined coping strategies among Israeli older adults abducted by Hamas and interpreted findings through gerontological lenses. METHODS:Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 older adults (mean age = 79.15; 12 women) approximately 1 year after release. Data were analyzed using a phenomenological approach to capture the lived experience of captivity. RESULTS:6 themes captured coping as a flexible configuration of practices. Participants described emotion regulation through shutdown, crying, and mental quieting. Agency was preserved through bodily self-care, time structuring, writing, and cognitive tasks. Internal occupation through music, games, and autobiographical imagination supported continuity. When held with others, participants sustained interpersonal bonds through conversation, humor, storytelling, imaginative travel, mutual care, and leadership. Meaning-making frameworks supported hope and sustained expectations of return. Coping was not uniformly adaptive: some responses reflected ambivalent meaning-making and pointed to limits of coping, including reframing deprivation as shared suffering, guilt, perceived abandonment, and eroded trust. DISCUSSION:Findings extend the literature by showing that later-life coping under external constraint involves preserving identity, relying on meaningful bonds, and shifting toward internal control. Results highlight vulnerability and strength, suggesting coping is active, socially embedded, and shaped by age-related meanings, while also revealing moral strain and ruptures in trust. Specifically, life stories and internal cognitive resources serve as survival mechanisms, transforming passive endurance into active engagement. These findings emphasize age-sensitive frameworks for understanding trauma and resilience among older populations in extreme situations.
OBJECTIVES:Rural residents are believed to experience greater social isolation than their urban counterparts. This isolation is typically attributed to the structural conditions that distinguish rural communities from urban communities. In the present study, we direct attention to the everyday places that older adults visit across the rural-urban context and the implications this has for direct and indirect social exposure. METHODS:We leverage ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data from the Social Environment and Cognitive Health in Urban and Rural Areas study. Two hundred and forty-eight participants recorded 4,906 valid EMAs. We explore the probability of EMAs being recorded outside the home and how far each EMA was recorded from home based on driving distance and time. RESULTS:There were no rural-urban differences in the probability of participants being away from home during their EMAs. However, rural participants were located farther from home than urban participants during their non-home EMAs. These latter differences were largely explained by trips to restaurants, stores, and healthcare facilities. There were no observed differences in the time separating participants from their workplaces, other people's homes, religious centers, or other outdoor spaces. DISCUSSION:Although rural and urban older adults visit the same types of places at remarkably similar rates, rural residents face greater travel burdens when accessing commercial places (e.g., restaurants, stores, and healthcare facilities). These findings suggest that the rural disadvantage is concentrated in commercial activity and carries implications for the types of social exposures that residents are likely to encounter depending on where they live.
OBJECTIVE:The Social Environment and Cognitive Health in Urban and Rural Areas study was designed to examine cognitive health disparities in later life. It gathers data on access to social resources, engagement in cognitively stimulating interactions, and exposure to activity spaces. METHODS:We enrolled 510 participants from 41 Indiana counties during baseline data collection in Fall 2023. All participants completed a computer-assisted personal interview survey that collected data on their cognitive, mental, and physical health, personal networks, sociodemographic attributes, occupational history, lifestyle activities, and social support. Two hundred and seventy-three participants completed a follow-up module in which they used a smartphone to record ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) that were administered four times per day for seven days. RESULTS:The mean age was 69.9 years. Most participants were women (64.5%), White (90.2%), and retired (54.5%). The average participant named 5.38 network members. Participants were at home (70.7%) and alone (60.2%) for the majority of their EMAs. Approximately one third of the sample scored below a recommended cutoff for mild cognitive impairment on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. DISCUSSION:We conclude by outlining a research agenda that (1) characterizes the social networks, interactions, and place-based activities of participants across geographic contexts, and (2) assesses the potential pathways between a combination of networks, interactions, and activities and cognitive function.
OBJECTIVES:Understanding whether daily routine reflects adaptive stability or constrained opportunities for enrichment remains an open question in aging research. METHODS:This study develops a Weekly Routine Index (WRI) using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) data from 253 older adults in the Social Environment and Cognitive Health in Urban and Rural Areas (SECHURA) to quantify within-person similarity in daily activities and co-presence with social partners (4,025 total EMAs). We computed pairwise similarities between each respondent's daily sequences to generate activity- and co-presence-based routine similarity measures. RESULTS:Regression and correlational analyses show that both routine similarities increase modestly with age and are higher among men and unmarried individuals. Importantly, stability in both activity and co-presence sequences is associated with lower cognitive functioning, more functional limitations, higher loneliness, and smaller, less diverse social networks. DISCUSSION:These findings suggest that stability in later life may not be uniformly beneficial; rather, highly routinized daily schedules may co-occur with limited exposure to socially and cognitively enriching experiences linked to healthy aging. This study also demonstrates the value of applying sequence analysis to EMA data to capture the temporal structure of later life.
OBJECTIVES:Cortisol dysregulation, reflective of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation, has been linked to executive functioning (EF) decline. However, substantial effect-size heterogeneity across studies highlights the potential role of psychosocial moderators. We investigated whether the severity of perceived daily stressors and chronic worry moderated the relationships between baseline cortisol dysregulation and 9-year EF. METHODS:Community adults (N = 1,617) completed four-day, four-times-daily salivary cortisol sampling and an eight-day interview-driven daily diary at baseline. Three cortisol metrics were computed: area under the curve (AUC), cortisol awakening response (CAR), and diurnal cortisol slope (DCS). Linear mixed models determined whether daily stressor or chronic worry severity moderated associations between baseline cortisol metrics and 9-year EF, adjusting for baseline EF. RESULTS:Daily stressor severity significantly moderated the relationship between DCS-but not AUC or CAR-and 9-year EF (Cohen's d = 0.113). Flatter DCS was associated with poorer EF across all stressor severity levels, although the observed numerical attenuation at higher severity was not statistically confirmed. Chronic worry severity was significantly associated with lower 9-year EF across all cortisol metrics and significantly moderated the CAR-to-EF relationship (d = -0.176). Exploratory analyses suggested that a flatter DCS was associated with worse EF at higher worry severity, but this interaction was not significant. DISCUSSION:These outcomes broadly align with moderation, not mediation, suggesting that psychosocial stress and worry can amplify, rather than yield, cortisol-linked relationships with EF. Pending replication, HPA-axis circadian modulation and chronic worry severity can indicate viable targets for prevention research.
OBJECTIVES:Subjective views of aging (VoA) predict health outcomes, yet most studies rely on specific measures of VoA in relatively healthy samples. Referring to multidimensional (generalized and personal) and multidirectional (negative and positive) VoA constructs, we examined whether these VoA differentially predict rehabilitation outcomes among older adult patients coping with hip fracture and stroke. METHODS:One hundred and fifty-eight geriatric rehabilitation patients (mean age=77.15, SD=6.71) reported VoA at admission while referring to negative and positive generalized (Attitudes to Aging Questionnaire, AAQ) and personal views (awareness of age-related changes, AARC). Patients' functional independence was evaluated by healthcare personnel at admission and discharge, and rehabilitation efficiency (RE) was computed to reflect functional improvement relative to potential. Path analyses tested the unique contributions of negative and positive VoA (for both generalized and personal views) while adjusting for other predictors of RE. RESULTS:For both generalized and personal VoA, negative views (i.e., AAQ-Losses and AARC-Losses) predicted lower RE, whereas positive views (i.e., AAQ-growth and AARC-Gains) did not show significant effects on RE. Negative views had a significantly stronger effect on RE than positive views, but only for the AAQ subscales. DISCUSSION:In the rehabilitation context, negative VoA, referring to age-related losses, appear more consequential for functional recovery than positive VoA (referring to age-related growth and gains). Findings support prioritizing interventions that identify and modify both generalized and personal attitudes, especially those focused on age-related losses, during rehabilitation to enhance functional outcomes.
OBJECTIVES:Awareness of age-related change (AARC) reflects how individuals perceive age-related gains and losses, with positive perceptions consistently predicting better health and well-being. The Awareness of Age-Related Change theoretical framework has long highlighted physical and psychosocial health as distal antecedents of AARC, but their actual importance remains poorly understood. In this preregistered study, we empirically test this key model component. METHODS:We operationalize distal antecedents as 9-year trajectories in physical health (morbidity, grip strength, hearing, vision), cognitive functioning (recall, processing speed, working memory), and self-reported loneliness. We apply structural equation modeling to three-wave longitudinal data from the Berlin Aging Study II (N = 753, aged 61-81 at baseline, 49% female) and test if these trajectories predict late-life AARC. RESULTS:Older adults with better baseline recall and grip strength reported fewer AARC-losses, whereas those with higher baseline loneliness perceived more losses and fewer gains. Steeper declines in recall and stronger increases in morbidity were associated with heightened awareness of losses. Processing speed, working memory, hearing, and vision were not associated with AARC. DISCUSSION:Our results suggest several refinements of the Awareness of Age-Related Change framework: (a) within a given construct space (e.g., cognition), some dimensions (e.g., recall) are more strongly associated with perceiving age-related losses than others (e.g., processing speed), (b) long-term trajectories of recall memory and morbidity (rather than status alone) are particularly relevant for loss-focused awareness of aging, and (c) higher levels of loneliness are most consistently associated with awareness of age-related gains.
OBJECTIVES:Guided by the social compensation hypothesis, this study examined longitudinal pathways linking multidimensional social media use (SMU) to positive aspects of caregiving (PAC) among family caregivers of people with dementia. Specifically, we tested whether perceived social support (PSS) mediates the association between SMU and PAC and whether offline social network size moderates the SMU-PSS pathway. METHODS:A three-wave time-lagged panel design was conducted over six months. Data were collected from a final analytic sample of 417 family caregivers in Hong Kong and Mainland China. Path analysis within a Structural Equation Modeling framework tested a moderated mediation model in which T1 SMU predicted T3 PAC indirectly via T2 PSS, conditional on T1 offline social network size. RESULTS:T1 SMU significantly predicted T3 PAC (B = 0.141, p <0.001), with a significant indirect effect through T2 PSS (B = 0.019, p = 0.027), indicating partial mediation. Offline social network size negatively moderated the SMU-PSS association (B = -0.030, p <0.01). Simple slope analyses showed that the SMU-PSS relationship was significant among caregivers with smaller offline networks but non-significant among those with larger networks. DISCUSSION:Findings support a compensatory function of SMU: online engagement may enhance positive caregiving experiences partly by strengthening PSS, particularly for caregivers with limited offline social resources. These results inform the development of targeted digital support strategies tailored to caregivers' baseline social networks.
OBJECTIVES:Discrimination is a stressor associated with worse cognition, but the pathways underlying this association are unclear. Moreover, discrimination may lead to exclusion and a reduced sense of belonging, which could increase loneliness and reduce purpose in life. We assess whether loneliness and purpose in life are mediators in the relationship between discrimination and episodic memory over an 8-year span. METHODS:Data were drawn from 6,155 respondents aged 51+ in the Health and Retirement Study (2010-2020). Longitudinal lagged structural equation models examined direct effects of (1) discrimination on loneliness, (2) discrimination on purpose in life, and (3) discrimination, loneliness, and purpose in life on episodic memory. Models also assessed the indirect effects of these pathways to test for mediation. RESULTS:Models showed that discrimination and purpose in life were significantly associated with greater loneliness after four years. Loneliness was also associated with reduced purpose in life after a four year-span, but discrimination was not. Loneliness and purpose in life were both associated with episodic memory at follow-up, yet only loneliness served as a significant mediator of the association between discrimination and episodic memory over time. DISCUSSION:Discrimination eroded episodic memory over time, in part due to its effects on psychosocial well-being, in particular loneliness. A reciprocal relationship between loneliness and purpose in life also indicated that discrimination may cause a "negative feedback loop," harming both aspects of psychosocial well-being over time. Findings suggest that interventions targeting upstream determinants of discrimination as well as loneliness may help preserve cognition.
OBJECTIVES:This study aimed to design and conduct an exploratory evaluation of an evidence-informed workshop series to promote the holistic well-being of late middle-aged and older adults with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) in Thailand. METHODS:The intervention, informed by the Minority Stress Model, the Transformative Learning Group Facilitation Model, and Experiential Learning Theory, focused on reducing loneliness and enhancing psychological, physical, social, and spiritual well-being by creating affirming, psychologically safe spaces. A non-randomized, single-group pre-post mixed-methods design was employed with 28 diverse SOGIESC participants aged 51-74. Quantitative data were collected using validated loneliness and well-being measures, while qualitative data from in-depth interviews were analyzed thematically. RESULTS:Participants showed significant within-group reductions in emotional and social loneliness, with median scores decreasing by 1.0 point on a 3-point scale and large effect sizes (rrb = -.684 and -.725, respectively). Significant improvements were also observed in psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being, with moderate-to-large effect sizes (rrb = .460, .673, and .406, respectively). Qualitative findings highlighted the transformative role of social support, belonging, and affirmative community spaces in fostering self-acceptance and collective empowerment. DISCUSSION:These exploratory findings suggest that friendly space workshop interventions show promise in addressing loneliness and enhancing multiple dimensions of well-being among older adults with diverse SOGIESC. The findings also highlight the need for ageing and social policies that move beyond individual self-care toward relational, community-based, and structurally supportive models of well-being and inclusion.
OBJECTIVES:Mobility limitations in later life can disrupt social engagement and increase loneliness, but trajectories may differ depending on whether limitations remain or individuals recover. This study examines loneliness trajectories around the onset of mobility limitations, focusing on differences by limitation duration. METHODS:Data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe were used to analyse 4,109 adults aged 65+ who experienced the onset of mobility limitations, of whom 2,018 recovered within two years. A reference group of 8,197 individuals had no mobility limitations. Loneliness was measured up to two years before and four years after the onset. Linear spline mixed-effects models estimated trajectories by onset and limitation duration. RESULTS:Loneliness increased following the onset of mobility limitations. Individuals with persistent limitations showed continued increases, while those who recovered stabilised, though not returning to pre-onset levels. DISCUSSION:These findings suggest that early interventions to mitigate mobility limitations may help reduce the risk of subsequent loneliness. Physical recovery does not restore social and emotional well-being. For those with persistent mobility limitations, targeted efforts to curb increasing loneliness trajectories could be especially beneficial.
OBJECTIVES:This study examined how widowhood shapes older adults' close network composition and quality and community participation, and whether these effects differ by gender. METHODS:Data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) were used to analyze 55,555 Europeans aged 50 and older, including 3,257 who became widowed between survey waves. Fixed-effects panel models estimated within-person changes in network size, composition (number of friends, children, and others in the network), satisfaction with the network, emotional closeness (average level of closeness across all social network members), and community involvement (active involvement of individuals in collective and social activities) from before to after widowhood, with gender interactions testing for differential adaptation. RESULTS:Widowhood was associated with sustained increases in network size and diversity, particularly in ties with children and friends, and especially among men. However, network satisfaction declined persistently following spousal loss for both genders, and emotional closeness deteriorated over time, though less so for women. Widowed women, more than men, increased their engagement in community activities, especially in voluntary work and sport or social clubs in the years following spousal loss. DISCUSSION:Gendered patterns of social adaptation emerge after widowhood, with men showing larger increases in network size and in the presence of children, and women showing greater increases in community participation. Structural network growth after widowhood does not necessarily translate into improved relationship quality. Rather than women uniformly outperforming men in social adaptation, our results suggest that widowers and widows pursue distinct and complementary strategies.
OBJECTIVES:Although prior literature documented the positive effect of adult children's education on parental cognitive function, research investigating trajectories of Chinese parents' cognitive function owing to adult children's education remains sparse. This study examined Chinese parents' cognitive trajectories predicted by the schooling years of the best-educated adult child through constructing parent-child gender dyads. It further proposes several mechanisms linking adult children's education to parental cognition. METHODS:Multilevel growth models nesting time-points within individuals and chain multiple mediation models are constructed to analyze five waves (2011-2020) of panel data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). The sample comprises 1,021 balanced panel observations of parents aged 45-80, which yields 5,105 person-waves. RESULTS:The results showed that adult children's education has a significant protective effect on parental cognitive function and on the deceleration of parental cognitive decline trajectories. The protective effect exhibits gender-based heterogeneity: sons' education has a stronger protective effect than that of daughters, especially for fathers. The mother-daughter subgroup shows the greatest decline in parental cognitive function. Findings also demonstrate that digital access, social participation, and the chain mediation (digital access social participation) are underlying mechanisms linking adult children's education to parental cognitive function. DISCUSSION:Findings of this study have important policy implications for implementing effective programs to prevent the decline of older adults' cognitive function in societies such as China, where support for older adults still heavily relies on the family system and adult children.
OBJECTIVES:While the cognitive benefits of larger social networks and more frequent social contact are known, the optimal amount of social interaction needed to derive these benefits remains unclear. This study explores the potential cognitive benefits of maintaining only periodic contact with social network members. METHODS:Data come from Rounds 1-3 of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), a nationally representative sample of adults aged 57-85 at baseline (N = 1,820). We regressed cognition from Rounds 2 and 3 on baseline social network measures, including social network size, average frequency of contact, as well as a set of Social Contact Frequency Profiles created by counting the number of network members with whom one interacts on a daily or almost daily basis ("active confidants"), on a weekly or monthly basis ("intermittent confidants"), or less often ("dormant confidants"). RESULTS:After controlling for covariates, neither network size nor average frequency of contact showed consistent patterns of association with cognitive function at follow-up. However, the number of intermittent confidants in one's network was consistently associated with cognitive function at follow-up, measured both as continuous (B = 0.24, p = .003) and binary (OR = 0.78, p = .006). We also found the number of intermittent confidants in one's network is positively correlated with socioeconomic status. DISCUSSION:These findings highlight the potential need for strategies to strengthen intermittent networks among middle-aged and older adults, with particular attention to marginalized groups who may face barriers to forming or sustaining these connections.
OBJECTIVES:As global rates of Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) increase, understanding the factors that contribute to cognitive aging is crucial. This study examined the association between occupational skill trajectories between ages 35 and 55 and cognitive function among older Chilean adults aged 60 and above. It explored how different patterns of occupational trajectories relate to cognitive performance. METHODS:The analysis used data from the Chile-Cog study, which applied the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) to a nationally representative sample of Chilean adults in 2019. These cognitive assessments were linked to detailed occupational histories from the Chilean Social Protection Survey (SPS). Using Sequence Analysis, occupational trajectories between ages 35 and 55 were classified into nine groups for women and six groups for men. Cognitive function was measured using a composite cognitive score based on the HCAP items. Linear regression models estimated the associations between occupational trajectory groups and cognitive outcomes, separately for women (n = 1,009) and men (n = 769). RESULTS:Individuals with longer participation in middle- and high-skill occupations showed better cognitive performance at older ages, whereas prolonged periods in low-skill jobs or not being employed were associated with lower scores. However, no strong evidence emerged on associations between specific trajectories of occupational mobility and cognitive outcomes. DISCUSSION:The findings suggest that cumulative time in higher-skill occupations may be more important for cognitive aging than occupational mobility itself. This study contributes to understanding how occupational trajectories shape cognition in later life and offers insights for countries undergoing economic and demographic transitions.
OBJECTIVES:Aging is associated with alterations in internal representations of action, potential mediators of fall risk, often examined through motor imagery. It is unclear, however, whether age affects temporal aspects of imagery and differentially impacts the predictive versus updating components of internal models. This study investigated age-related differences in motor imagery during the Timed Up and Go (TUG) task and examined sensorimotor and neuropsychological factors influencing performance. METHODS:36 young adults (22-42 years) and 52 older adults (66-86 years) performed a series of TUG trials along with imagined trials before (prediction) and after (update) execution. Temporal congruence, the difference between imagined and executed TUG durations, was examined in terms of prediction and update errors. 11 sensorimotor and neuropsychological screening measures were analyzed as correlates of performance. RESULTS:Older adults exhibited better temporal congruence than younger adults during both prediction and update, and similar improvement across repeated trials. Overestimation of TUG time during motor imagery was linked to higher movement self-consciousness, while age-related changes in temporal congruence were associated with visual motor imagery ability. DISCUSSION:These findings challenge the prevailing belief that motor imagery declines with age, indicating that internal models remain stable in older adults during both prediction and update, at least during familiar daily tasks. This work contributes to a more precise characterization of motor imagery capacities in aging and highlights the potential of this paradigm for training interventions and fall-risk mitigation.
