Cited by 967Health disparities and outcomesAging, Health, and DisabilityPhysical Activity and Health

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 54 of the 59 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 42 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

The relationship between physical and mental health: A mediation analysis

Open access
Ohrnberger, Julius, Fichera, Eleonora, Sutton, Matt·2017·Social Science & Medicine

Abstract

There is a strong link between mental health and physical health, but little is known about the pathways from one to the other. We analyse the direct and indirect effects of past mental health on present physical health and past physical health on present mental health using lifestyle choices and social capital in a mediation framework. We use data on 10,693 individuals aged 50 years and over from six waves (2002-2012) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Mental health is measured by the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES) and physical health by the Activities of Daily Living (ADL). We find significant direct and indirect effects for both forms of health, with indirect effects explaining 10% of the effect of past mental health on physical health and 8% of the effect of past physical health on mental health. Physical activity is the largest contributor to the indirect effects. There are stronger indirect effects for males in mental health (9.9%) and for older age groups in mental health (13.6%) and in physical health (12.6%). Health policies aiming at changing physical and mental health need to consider not only the direct cross-effects but also the indirect cross-effects between mental health and physical health.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

Using six waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, this paper finds significant direct and indirect cross-effects between past mental and physical health, with lifestyle choices and social capital mediating about 10% and 8% of the total effects. Physical activity is the largest mediator, and indirect effects vary by age and gender.

Key findings

  • Past mental health has significant direct and indirect effects on present physical health, and past physical health has significant direct and indirect effects on present mental health. The total indirect effect accounts for 9.7% of the effect of past mental health on physical health and 8% of the effect of past physical health on mental health.
  • Physical activity is the largest contributor to the indirect effects: it explains 77.27% of the total indirect effect of past mental health on physical health, all of the total indirect effect of past physical health on mental health, 7.55% of the total effect of past mental health on physical health, and 8% of the total effect of past physical health on mental health.
  • Social interaction explains 13.63% of the total indirect effect of past mental health on physical health. In the full-sample mediation, the indirect cigarette effect is not statistically significant for either direction, though better baseline mental health is associated with smoking about 16% fewer cigarettes on average.
  • Indirect effects are heterogeneous: stronger indirect effects are reported for males in mental health (9.9%) and for older age groups in mental health (13.6%) and physical health (12.6%). For 50–60 year olds, cigarette smoking explains 41.7% of the total indirect effect and 5.4% of the total effect of past mental health on physical health.

Methods

  • Data: six waves (2002–2012) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, covering 10,693 individuals aged 50 years and over, with 29,944 observations.
  • Measures: physical health via the six-item Activities of Daily Living index (0–6, higher = better); mental health via the eight-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (0–8, higher = better); mediators are lagged physical activity, cigarette consumption, and a social interaction index; controls include demographics, education, retirement, insurance, income, region, and year.
  • Analysis: random effects regression models estimate direct effects; mediation is estimated by total differentiation/product-of-coefficients, with bootstrapped direct, indirect, and total effects; subgroup analyses are by gender and age quartiles (50–60, 60–70, 70–80, 80+), with robustness checks for smoking addiction stock, two-period lagged mediators, balanced panel, and attrition.

Limitations

  • The paper states that only three mediators are considered, whereas other factors such as socio-economic status, dietary choices, or medical care may be important; therefore the estimates are lower bounds for mediator effects and upper bounds for direct effects.
  • The paper states that further studies are needed to consider a broader set of mediators and to examine specific health interventions and long-term cross-effects.
  • Evident from the text: the analysis relies on observational ELSA data and assumes conditional exogeneity of lifestyle choices and social interaction, random effects, and no reverse causality between physical and mental health, which may limit causal interpretation.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.008

Cites

54 of 54 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

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Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 42 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 108 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 20
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 19
36 of 36
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Little is known about the potential pathways through which mental health affects physical health and vice versa.

    “However, little is known about the potential pathways through which mental health affects physical health and vice versa (i.e.so-called “indirect effects”).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    No existing mediation study has examined the relationship between physical and mental health and the pathways considered in this paper.

    “Many psychological, epidemiologic, and economic studies have used mediation analysis, but none in the context of the relationship between physical and mental health and the pathways that we consider.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Conditional on baseline health, lifestyle choices and social interaction are exogenous to mental and physical health.

    “We assume that, conditional on baseline health, lifestyle choices and social interaction are exogenous to mental and physical health.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The indirect effects of past mental health on current physical health and of past physical health on current mental health are mediated through lagged effects of physical activity, social interactions, and cigarette consumption.

    “We assume that the indirect effects of past mental health on current physical health and of past physical health on current mental health are mediated through lagged effects of the individual health investments, including past physical activity ( -PhysAct it 1 ), past social interactions ( -SC Index it 1 ), and past cigarette consumption ( -CIG it 1 ).”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The errors v_it and ρ_it in equations (1) and (2) are uncorrelated.

    “We assume that the errors v it and ρ it in equations ( 1) and ( 2) are uncorrelated.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The composite error term v_it = μ_i + ε_it has a time-invariant individual component μ_i and a time-varying error ε_it.

    “We account for unobserved heterogeneity by including random effects (RE) in all equations, assuming a composite error term = + v μ ε it i it with timeinvariant individual component μ i and time-varying error ε it .”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Choices of health investments and consumption are maximised over health, requiring that errors are not serially correlated and choices are independent of previous choices.

    “This is an important assumption for our model where choices of health investments and consumption are maximised over health requiring that errors are not serially correlated and choices are independent of previous choices.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Other potential mediators such as stress and sleep are captured directly by the measure of mental health.

    “Secondly, other potential mediators such as stress and sleep are captured directly by our measure of mental health.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Social interactions are critical production factors in health.

    “Finally, social interactions are critical production factors in health.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The ELSA is a representative sample of the English population aged 50 years and older.

    “The study is a representative sample of English population aged 50 years and older, collecting objective and subjective data on physical and mental health, and on socio-economic status.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The effect of health lags is captured by the mediators.

    “It differs from dynamic models with lagged health because the effect of health lags is captured by the mediators.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    RE rules out correlation between the regressors and the unmeasured variability across individuals.

    “RE rules out correlation between the regressors and the unmeasured variability across individuals.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The mediation models are not confounded by unmeasured variables.

    “The mediation analysis on physical health shows that the effect of baseline mental health on present physical health is significantly mediated by past physical activity and by past social interaction.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The temporal ordering of baseline health, mediators, and outcomes is correctly specified.

    “For models (3)-(5) the time-variant covariates take on (t-1)-lagged values (e.g.Age (t-1), Age Squared (t-1), Higher Education (t-1), Household Size (t-1), Private Insurance (t-1), Retired (t-1), Log-equivalised household income (t-1)).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The ELSA sample is representative of the older English population.

    “We use six waves of the ELSA (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012), and investigate potential mediating effects on the full sample size and heterogeneous effects by age-quartiles and gender.”
15 of 15

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • Social-interaction shares imply more than the stated maximum indirect share

    Minor

    For ages 70-80, a pathway accounting for 1.3% of the indirect effect and 0.19% of the total effect implies that the indirect effect is about 14.6% of the total. That exceeds the stated maximum of 12.9% across age groups, even allowing for the printed rounding.

1 of 1

Citations

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5 of the 59 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Umberson, 2010, Social relationships and health: a flashpoint for helath policy, J. Health Soc. Behav., 51, 554

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Metadata

Authors
Ohrnberger, J., Fichera, E., & Sutton, M.
Affiliations
  • University of Manchester (GB)
  • University of Bath (GB)
Corresponding author
Ohrnberger, Julius
Venue
Social Science & Medicine
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2017-12
Volume
195
Pages
42-49
ISSN
0277-9536 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2766487143
Cited by
967
References
59
Citations by year
2026: 70 · 2025: 130 · 2024: 173 · 2023: 150 · 2022: 142 · 2021: 128 · 2020: 123 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 13
FWCI
52.79
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Social Science & Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
National Institute for Health and Care Research (NF-SI-0515-10080)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Aging, Health, and Disability
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Physical Activity and Health
Keywords
mental health, physical health, mediation analysis, physical activity, lifestyle choices, social capital, activities of daily living, depression, older adults, gender differences, age differences, health policy
MeSH terms
Aged, Female, United Kingdom, Health Status, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Mental Health, Middle Aged

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