Beyond single indicators of social networks: a LISREL analysis of social ties among the elderly

While the health promoting influences of social networks have been shown in a number of studies, little attention has been paid to measurement issues within the field of epidemiology. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new set of measures of social networks for use in epidemiological research on the elderly. We use confirmatory factor analysis to test a multidimensional model of social networks using data from a large epidemiologic study of community-dwelling adults age 65 and over (U.S.A.). Confirmatory factor analysis conducted using LISREL showed that our model provides a good fit to the data after several adjustments for correlated measurement error were introduced. Based on this analysis, we developed new measures of four dimensions and a summary index of social networks. Bivariate relationships between our new measures and several sociodemographic variables of interest are also presented.