The quality and quantity of one's social relationships are reliably related to physical health outcomes. For instance, there is strong evidence linking social support to lower overall disease morbidity and mortality. Given links between relationships and mortality across different diseases, a focus on more general biological pathways that may be responsible for such links is important. Such research would complement existing disease-specific approaches, and highlight potentially important integrative mechanisms. This application attempts to forge such links by examining the association between relationships and novel indicators of biological aging at the cellular level (i.e., telomere length, telomerase activity). Thus, the primary aim of this R21 exploratory / developmental grant is to examine links between relationships and aspects of cellular aging thought to influence general susceptibility to disease.
A second aim of this grant is to examine such links in the context of a general conceptual model that highlights the joint influence of positive and negative aspects of social relationships on health (i.e., supportive, aversive, and ambivalent).
A final aim will be to examine the potential pathways responsible for links between relationships and health. Thus, we will investigate potential psychological and behavioral mechanisms linking relationships to indicators of cellular aging. We pursue these aims in an initial study of 180 healthy men and women between the ages of 50 to 70. We will utilize this sample as middle-aged and older adults comprise a growing segment of the population and identification of factors that promote greater resiliency or risk in such populations is an important public health agenda. Measures of social relationships, telomere length, telomerase activity, and conceptually- relevant psychological and behavioral mediators will be obtained. We predict that social support (as well as other relationship processes) will be associated with these indicators of cellular aging; and these associations will be mediated by relevant behavioral and psychological processes (see application for specific predictions). It is our hope that this exploratory research can serve as the basis for the development of longitudinal studies that are able to (a) link social ties to actual changes in cellular aging (i.e., telomere lengthening or shortening), (b) model plausible mechanisms at multiple levels of analysis, (c) provide more direct links to the development and exacerbation of disease processes, and (d) inform relevant interventions aimed at promoting health through relationship processes. Determining the factors that influence the biological aging process is important to inform theory and relevant interventions. In this R21 application, we test links between social ties and aspects of cellular aging using a more comprehensive model of relationships and by modeling relevant psychological and behavioral pathways. This project will provide preliminary evidence on the plausibility of such links, and the levels of analysis (e.g., social, biological) that could be targeted as potential entry points for interventions. ? ? ?
