ArticleThe Gerontologist2020
Childhood Friendship Experiences and Cognitive Functioning in Later Life: The Mediating Roles of Adult Social Disconnectedness and Adult Loneliness.
Article in The Gerontologist, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- The role of social isolation in the association between childhood friendships and frailty in older adults: evidence from a national cohort study.BMC geriatrics · 2026Observational
- Association of family and friend relationship satisfaction with incident dementia: A prospective cohort study of 104,093 participants.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- The life course impact of adverse childhood experiences on chronic pulmonary disease: the roles of inflammatory response and social buffering.Innovation in aging · 2026Article
- Association of Early Life Risk Factors and APOE ε4 With Incident Dementia: Evidence From 14 Years of U.S. Data.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Article
- The long shadow of family-internal and -external adverse childhood experiences: associations with mental functioning in middle-aged and older cancer survivors.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2025Article
- Longitudinal influences of adverse childhood experience patterns on mental health among older Chinese people.BMC geriatrics · 2025Article
- Social Activities and Cognitive Functioning Across Mid- and Late Life: Evidence From China.The Gerontologist · 2025Article
- The long-term impact of childhood peer relationships on disability in later life: Causal mediation evidence from older Chinese adults.SSM - population health · 2025Article
- Bidirectional Association Between Internet Use and Depressive Symptoms Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China: A Cross-Lagged Model of Proactive Health Behavior as the Mediating Role.Depression and anxiety · 2025Article
- Childhood adversities and memory function in later life: the mediating role of activity participation.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
- Adverse childhood experiences and cognitive function in later life: the sequential mediating roles of education level and adult loneliness.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Bidirectional associations between hearing difficulty and cognitive function in Chinese adults: a longitudinal study.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2023Article
- Is there a correlation between sensory impairments and social isolation in middle-aged and older Chinese population? Cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence from a nationally representative survey.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Cognitive Function Trajectories and Factors among Chinese Older Adults with Subjective Memory Decline: CHARLS Longitudinal Study Results (2011-2018).International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Heterogeneous adverse childhood experiences and cognitive function in an elderly Chinese population: a cohort study.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Association between childhood friendship and cognitive ageing trajectory in later life: evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS).BMC geriatrics · 2022Article
- Loneliness among older adults in Europe: The relative importance of early and later life conditions.PloS one · 2022Article
- The Impact of Early Neighborhood Cohesion, and Its Mechanism, on Cognitive Function in Later Life.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectivesThis study investigated the relationship between childhood friendships and cognitive functioning, as assessed with cognitive status and decline among adults aged 45 and older in China. We also examined the mediating effect of adult social disconnectedness and adult loneliness for this relationship. RESEARCH DESIGN AND
methodsThis study was based on 3 waves of data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS; 2011, 2013, 2015; N = 13,959). Cognitive functioning was assessed with episodic memory. Childhood friendship measures were taken from the 2014 life history module of the CHARLS. Two dimensions of adult social isolation, loneliness and social disconnectedness, were included as mediators. Latent growth curve modeling was utilized to test the associations between childhood friendships, adult social isolation, and cognitive functioning.
resultsAdverse childhood friendship experiences were found to be significantly associated with both lower initial cognitive status and the rate of decline in cognitive functioning. Our findings indicated that adult loneliness and social disconnectedness partly mediated the link between childhood friendship experiences and the initial level of cognitive functioning, but not cognitive decline later in life. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: The findings emphasized the enduring importance of childhood friendships for cognitive functioning later in life. Interventions that focus on improving social participation through fostering friendships in childhood may have long-term benefits for cognition later in life.
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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.