CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 494Health disparities and outcomesCardiac Health and Mental HealthHealthcare Systems and Public Health

Social ties and change in social ties in relation to subsequent total and cause-specific mortality and coronary heart disease incidence in men

Open access
Eng, P. M., Rimm, E. B., Fitzmaurice, G., Kawachi, I.·2002·American Journal of Epidemiology
DOI 10.1093/aje/155.8.700
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

The authors prospectively examined the effects of social ties and change in social ties, as measured by a well-known social network index, on total and cause-specific mortality and on coronary heart disease incidence in 28,369 US male health professionals aged 42-77 years in 1988. Over 10 years, the relative risk of total mortality for men in the lower two levels of social integration compared with more socially integrated men was 1.19 (95% confidence interval: 1.06, 1.34) after controlling for age, occupation, health behaviors, general physical condition, coronary risk factors, and dietary habits. In multivariate analysis, deaths from accidents and suicide and from other noncancer, noncardiovascular causes were significantly increased among less socially connected men. Socially isolated men also had an increased risk of fatal coronary heart disease (multivariate relative risk = 1.82, 95% confidence interval: 1.02, 3.23). An increase in the overall social network index between 1988 and 1996 was not significantly associated with subsequent 2-year mortality. In analyses of change in social network components restricted to older men, each categorical unit increase in number of close friends was significantly associated with a 29% decrease in risk of death. Increase in religious service attendance over time was also significantly predictive of decreased mortality.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1093/aje/155.8.700

Cites

51 of 51 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

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?

  • Meditation is particularly effective in reducing pain, and the effects are magnified when a religious word is used to focus attention.

    “Research suggests that meditation is particularly effective in reducing pain, although the effects are magnified when a religious word is used to focus attention [546, 547].”

    From Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications (2012) · cites this paper as [547]

    The results passage on network components (page not available) concerns religious service attendance and mortality, not meditation or pain. Searches for meditation, pain reduction, and a religious word used to focus attention found no passage addressing the claim in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.78)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • A number of studies have suggested that health behaviours, poorer sleep quality, and vital exhaustion were potential mediators between loneliness and a range of physical health outcomes.

    “These depend on the outcome being studied, but a number of studies have suggested that health behaviours (Cacioppo et al. 2002, Eng et al. 2002), poorer sleep quality (Cacioppo et al. 2002) and vital exhaustion (Eng et al. 2002) were potential mediators between loneliness and a range of physical health outcomes.”

    From Social isolation, loneliness and health in old age: a scoping review (2017) · cites this paper as Eng et al. 2002

  • Social isolation is linked to a higher risk of death in older adults.

    “Socially isolated individuals are at increased risk for the development of cardiovascular disease (3), infectious illness (4), cognitive deterioration (5), and mortality (6-9).”

    From Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in older men and women (2013) · cites this paper as [6]

Self-check

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

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Blazer DG. Social support and mortality in an elderly commu- nity population. Am J Epidemiol 1982;115:684-94.
  2. Berkman LF, Glass T. Social integration, social networks, social support, and health. In: Berkman LF, Kawachi I, eds. Social epidemiology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000:137-73.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Eng, P. M., Rimm, E. B., Fitzmaurice, G., & Kawachi, I.
Affiliations
  • Harvard University (US)
  • Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
Corresponding author
Kawachi, I.
ORCID
Venue
American Journal of Epidemiology
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2002-04-15
Volume
155
Issue
8
Pages
700-709
ISSN
  • 0002-9262 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-6256
DOI
10.1093/aje/155.8.700
OpenAlex
W1981819435
Cited by
492
References
51
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 26 · 2013: 26 · 2012: 20
FWCI
14.34
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • American Journal of Epidemiology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (CA55075)
  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01HL035464, HL35464)
  • National Cancer Institute (CA-55075)
  • National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (3 T32 ES07069-16A1, T32ES007069)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Cardiac Health and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Healthcare Systems and Public Health
Keywords
social ties, social integration, social network index, social isolation, mortality, cause-specific mortality, coronary heart disease incidence, men, healthcare workers, close friends, religious service attendance, social connectedness
MeSH terms
Accidents, Adult, Aged, Cardiovascular Diseases, Cause of Death, Coronary Disease, Grief, Humans, Life Change Events, Life Style, Male, Middle Aged, Neoplasms, Risk, Social Isolation, Social Support, Suicide, United States, Incidence, Multivariate Analysis

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review