Health and network centrality in a continuing care retirement community

The overlap between social networks and health represents a key area of research in social gerontology. Set in a continuing care retirement community, this research focuses on how health is related to outgoing and incoming reports of social interaction among residents.

Study participants (n = 123) were given the RAND 36-item Health Survey and asked about their social interaction with other people living at the retirement community. Negative binomial and linear regression analysis was used to assess associations between measures of network centrality and health.

Retirement community residents in better health received more nominations from their peers about general socializing, net of how many ties they themselves reported. The ties received by healthier people, moreover, tended to come from others who were central in the network. Conversely, those in better health reported fewer close ties with their coresidents, net of the alter reports.

Results are interpreted in light of status processes, which emerge in bounded social settings.