Trajectories of childhood social isolation in a nationally representative cohort: Associations with antecedents and early adulthood outcomes
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Background: This study examined early life antecedents of childhood social isolation, whether these factors accounted for poor outcomes of isolated children, and how these associations varied according to patterns of stability and change in childhood isolation. Methods: Participants included 2232 children from the Environmental Risk (E‐Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study. We conducted growth mixture modelling (GMM) on combined parent and teacher reports of children's social isolation when children were 5, 7, 10 and 12 years, and we assessed associations with age‐5 antecedents and age‐18 outcomes using regression analyses. Results: We identified three linear developmental trajectories of increasing (4.75%), decreasing (5.25%) and low stable (90.00%) social isolation. Age‐5 attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, emotional problems, prosocial behaviours, maternal personality (openness) and size of school were associated with the decreasing trajectory of social isolation. When controlling for these antecedents, increasingly isolated children were still more likely to experience ADHD symptoms, loneliness, lower job optimism and lower physical activity at age 18. Conclusions: Isolated children follow distinct patterns of change over childhood and isolation seems most detrimental to health at the time it is experienced. Social isolation can be a valuable indicator of co‐occurring problems and provide targets for mental health intervention in young people.
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Deficits in social relationships, particularly isolation and loneliness experienced early in life, are associated with poor mental health, functioning, and socioeconomic outcomes.
“Deficits in social relationships, particularly isolation and loneliness experienced early in life, are associated with poor mental health (Matthews et al., 2015;Qualter et al., 2010), functioning (Thompson et al., 2022;von Soest et al., 2020) and socioeconomic outcomes (Bryan et al., 2024).”
From Investigating the interplay of loneliness and social isolation across adolescence: Findings from a nationally representative longitudinal study (2026) · cites this paper as Thompson et al., 2022
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- Authors
- Thompson, K. N., Odgers, C. L., Bryan, B. T., Danese, A., Milne, B. J., Strange, L., Matthews, T., & Arseneault, L.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- Duke University (US)
- National Health Service (GB)
- University of Auckland (NZ)
- Corresponding author
- Matthews, Timothy
- Arseneault, Louise
- ORCID
- Venue
- JCPP Advances
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2022-05-11
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- e12073-e12073
- ISSN
- 2692-9384 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10242821
- OpenAlex
- W4280504558
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1
- FWCI
- 1.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- JCPP Advances (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Greenwich Academic Literature Archive (University of Greenwich) (acceptedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Medical Research Council (G1002190)
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD077482)
- Jacobs Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Keywords
- developmental trajectories, ADHD symptoms, emotional problems, prosocial behavior, maternal personality, school size, loneliness, physical activity, early adulthood outcomes, Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study
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