ArticlePreventive medicine2019
Prospective associations of happiness and optimism with lifestyle over up to two decades.
Article in Preventive medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 60 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association of Optimism With Cardiovascular Events and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.JAMA network open · 2019Pooled it
- Self-Efficacy, Healthy and Sustainable Lifestyle, and Life Satisfaction: An Integrated Model Accounting for Self-Reported Recreational Physical Activity Participation Status in Veterinary Students.Veterinary medicine and science · 2026Article
- The Prospective Association Between Life Satisfaction and Physical Pain: Evidence From Longitudinal and Cohort Data.Personality & social psychology bulletin · 2026Article
- Emotional Vitality, Flourishing, and Healthy Lifestyles in Young Adults: A Longitudinal Study.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2026Article
- Observational
- Dietary flavonoid intake and psychological well-being - A bidirectional relationship.Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2026Article
- Measuring Psychological Well-Being and Behaviors Using Smartphone-Based Digital Phenotyping: An Intensive Longitudinal Observational mHealth Pilot Study Embedded in a Prospective Cohort of Women.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2025Observational
- Dietary intake of fruits and vegetables, polyunsaturated fats, and fish and positive psychological well-being in older adults: A cross-sectional analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).British journal of health psychology · 2025Article
- Health Behaviors in the Context of Optimism and Self-Efficacy-The Role of Gender Differences: A Cross-Sectional Study in Polish Health Sciences Students.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Are the ways women cope with stressors related to their health behaviors over time?Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2025Article
- Promoting workplace psychological wellbeing: evaluation of a multidisciplinary Employee Assistance Program at a tertiary hospital in Asia.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Identification of Psychosocial and Sociodemographic Factors Associated with Low Medication Awareness in COPD Subjects: A Cross-Sectional Study, Findings from the Indonesian Family Life Survey 5.International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2025Article
- Well-Being and Cardiovascular Health: Insights From the UK Biobank Study.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2024Article
- Happy people live longer because they are healthy people.BMC geriatrics · 2023Article
- Socioeconomic, Behavioural, and Social Health Correlates of Optimism and Pessimism in Older Men and Women: A Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Early-life adversity and later-life mental health: a conditional process analysis of sense of coherence and resilience-related resources.Frontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry · 2023Article
- Does exercise participation promote happiness?: Mediations and heterogeneities.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Brain imaging studies of emotional well-being: a scoping review.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Are coping strategies and variability in their use associated with lifespan?Journal of psychosomatic research · 2022Article
- Optimism, lifestyle, and longevity in a racially diverse cohort of women.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Greater levels of psychological well-being are associated with reduced disease and mortality risk, and lifestyle habits may be potential mechanisms underlying these relationships. Prospective studies show that positive psychological factors enhance the likelihood of adopting specific health behaviors; yet, whether they promote the adoption of multiple healthy behaviors, which can have a multiplicative effect on disease and mortality risk compared to individual behaviors, is unknown. We investigated whether happiness and optimism were related to a healthy lifestyle (characterized by multiple health behaviors) over 10-22 years of follow-up; we also explored bidirectional associations, assessing if a healthy lifestyle at baseline was related to greater likelihood of experiencing higher happiness and optimism over time. Women reported levels of happiness in 1992 (N = 52,133) and optimism in 2004 (N = 36,802). Health-related behaviors (physical activity, body mass index, diet, alcohol and tobacco consumption) were self-reported and combined into a lifestyle score, every four years from baseline until 2014. Multivariable generalized estimating equations with a Poisson distribution were used. Women with moderate and higher (versus lower) happiness levels were more likely to report sustaining healthy lifestyles (RR = 1.18, CI = 1.11-1.25; RR = 1.39, CI = 1.32-1.46, respectively). In secondary analyses, the magnitude of the inverse association was somewhat smaller (likelihood of sustaining higher happiness levels for baseline healthy versus unhealthy lifestyle, RR = 1.11, CI = 1.10-1.12). Results were similar when considering optimism as the exposure and in other secondary analyses (e.g., across individual habits). While bidirectional associations are apparent, these findings suggest pursuing happiness and optimism as modifiable determinants of lifestyle deserves further consideration.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.