The Role of Affect on Physical Health Over Time: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis Over 20 Years

While previous studies have investigated the interplay between affect and health (1) over an extended period of time, (2) in a representative population, and (3) while modelling positive and negative affect simultaneously, no single study has done all three at once.

The present study accomplishes this by sampling adults from the Midlife Development in the US study who completed affect (Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998) and health measures (chronic conditions, Charlson, Szatrowski, Peterson, & Gold, 1994; functional limitations, McHorney, Ware, Lu, & Sherbourne, 1994; self-reported health) measured three times over 20 years. We ran three (one per health metric) random-intercept cross-lagged panel models, where positive and negative affect were modelled simultaneously.

Results indicated that positive and negative affect significantly predicted future heath (functional limitations/self-reported health) and that this relationship was reciprocal (i.e. health measures predicted future affect). However, there were no significant cross-lagged relations between affect and chronic conditions.

Our results suggest that both positive and negative affect play an equal role in predicting future health for functional limitations and self-reported health as well as highlight the bi-directionality of this relationship. Additionally, the degree to which affect predicts future health may be moderated by the type of health outcome.