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Social relationships and health a flashpoint for health policy
Open accessAbstract
Social relationships--both quantity and quality--affect mental health, health behavior, physical health, and mortality risk. Sociologists have played a central role in establishing the link between social relationships and health outcomes, identifying explanations for this link, and discovering social variation (e.g., by gender and race) at the population level. Studies show that social relationships have short- and long-term effects on health, for better and for worse, and that these effects emerge in childhood and cascade throughout life to foster cumulative advantage or disadvantage in health. This article describes key research themes in the study of social relationships and health, and it highlights policy implications suggested by this research.
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“The pathway between loneliness and anxiety and depression involves psychological, biological, and social factors [77, 78].”
From The prospective association of adolescent loneliness and low resilience with anxiety and depression in young adulthood: The HUNT study (2025) · cites this paper as [78]
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“Having a range of good social connections has been identified as an important aspect of successful ageing [12] and is associated with lower mortality rates [13, 14], better health outcomes [15, 16], and higher reported wellbeing [17, 18] and quality of life [19, 20].”
From Social isolation, cognitive reserve, and cognition in healthy older people (2018) · cites this paper as [16]
In the citing paper
“There is growing evidence that the number and quality of social relationships have substantial impacts on health, well-being, and longevity, and, at least in animals, on reproductive fitness.”
From Variation in the β-endorphin, oxytocin, and dopamine receptor genes is associated with different dimensions of human sociality (2017) · cites this paper as [3]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Umberson, D., & Karas Montez, J.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- University of Texas at Austin
- ORCID
- Umberson, Debra
- Venue
- Journal of Health and Social Behavior
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2010-03
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 1_suppl
- Pages
- S54-S66
- ISSN
- 0022-1465 (ISSN-L)
- 2150-6000
- PMC
- PMC3150158
- OpenAlex
- W2128149221
- Cited by
- 2,639
- References
- 78
- Citations by year
- 2026: 233 · 2025: 268 · 2024: 257 · 2023: 229 · 2022: 247 · 2021: 263 · 2020: 238 · 2019: 176 · 2018: 161 · 2017: 133 · 2016: 116 · 2015: 121 · 2014: 87 · 2013: 57 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 34.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Health and Social Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (R01AG026613)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD042849, T32HD007081)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
- Keywords
- interpersonal relationships, health, social determinants of health, mental health, health behavior, mortality risk, gender differences, racial disparities, health policy
- MeSH terms
- Female, Health Policy, Health Status, Humans, Male, Social Adjustment, Social Environment, Social Support, Sociology, Medical, Stress, Psychological, Racial Groups
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