Abstract
Research has pointed to the relationship between social network and health in late life. However, it is still unclear whether greater network resources are responsible for better health or whether people with better health tend to recruit and maintain more social ties. This symposium attempts to disentangle the network/ health nexus by means of uniquely appropriate longitudinal databases that employ state-of--the-art social network inventories. We focus, especially, on data derived from name-generating network mechanisms. The papers also address a range of populations. The study by van Tilburg and Broese van Groenou looks at 25 years of data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) and finds that social networks are influenced by cognitive health, but also protect against mortality. Using data from the German Ageing Survey (DEAS), Deindl and Brandt discovered effects of health on social networks over time and vice versa. Schwartz and Litwin employed structural equation modeling to examine data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The results show that social networks and mental health have a reciprocal relationship, but the effect of mental health is stronger. Webster, Ajrouch and Antonucci examined two waves of data (1992; 2015) from the longitudinal Social Relations Study in Detroit and found that later-life health and relationship transitions are inter-connected and moderated by education. Finally, the study by Chi looks at three groups of Chinese older adults in immigrant, transnational, and nonmigrant families, and finds that worry about future health needs are moderated by network factors.