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Updated: Jul 6, 2026

Method and Instrumented Fixture for Femoral Fracture Testing in a Sideways Fall-on-the-Hip Position
Published on: August 17, 2017
Amount of social contact and hip fracture mortality
Edward Mortimore1, Dirk Haselow, Melissa Dolan
1Division of Nursing Homes, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 7500 Security Blvd., Room S3-12-11, Baltimore, MD 21244-1850, USA. Edward.Mortimore@cms.hhs.gov
Objectives:
To study the association between amount of social contact and mortality after hip fracture in elderly participants.
Design:
Prospective cohort.
Setting:
Community residents of Baltimore, Maryland.
Participants:
Six hundred seventy-four elderly participants.
Measurements:
Amount of telephone and direct personal contact between participants and their relatives and friends and mortality up to 2 years after fracture.
Results:
No social contact with friends during the 2 weeks before the fracture was associated with a five times greater risk of death over 2 years than daily contact with friends during the 2 weeks before the fracture (hazard ratio (HR)=5.04, 95% confidence interval (CI)=2.75-9.23). Participants with less than daily contact were also at greater risk of dying, although the CI spanned 1 (HR=1.76, 95% CI=0.99-3.13). Participants who had no contact with family members prefracture were more than twice as likely to die as those who communicated daily during the 2 weeks before fracture (HR=2.26, 95% CI=1.36-3.77). Participants who had less than daily contact were also more than twice as likely to die (HR=2.55, 95% CI=1.65-3.94).
Conclusion:
This study suggests that lower social contact before hip fracture is associated with poorer survival after 2 years.
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