The proposed five-year project focusses on the relationship between psychosocial factors and physical health in late life. The project is divided into three parts. Study I is a prospective, longitudinal study examining whether structural psychosocial factors (personality, social integration, and cognition can predict morbidity (hypertension, CHD, and cancer) and mortality from all causes. This study will utilize preexisting data from the Normative Aging Study (NAS), a longitudinal, biomedical study which has been following a panel of 2,280 men for 25 years. This is a particularly advantageous data set for this project, as all men were screened for absence of disease before entry into the study, and because it includes detailed clinical indicators of physical health, along with personality cognitive, and social data. Further, results of the laboratory tests and physician examinations are available to this project at no cost. Using proportional hazards models controlling for standard risk factors, we will determine: (1) whether these psychosocial factors age general risk factors or specific to particular diseases; (2) if there is independence or overlap among different psychosocial predictors of health; and (3) if there are significant interactions between personality and risk factors int he prediction of disease. The second study will examine the relationship between psychosocial process factors (stress and coping) and disease processes (e.g., precursors of overt disease such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels). The major issues to be addressed include: (1) which type of stress (life events, hassles, or perceived/immediate stress) correlates with the disease process measures., (2) and whether there are direct, buffering or no relationships between psychosocial process variables (stress and coping) and disease process variables. Combining data from Studies 1 and 2, the third study will test three hypothesized mechanisms by which psychosocial structural factors can affect physical health outcomes: (a) through direct etiological effects on disease processes; (b) through effects on health behavior habits; and/or (c) through promoting or modifying the effects of stress.
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