ArticleJournal of the American Geriatrics Society2020
Frailty Combined with Loneliness or Social Isolation: An Elevated Risk for Mortality in Later Life.
Article in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The conceptualisation and measurement of social frailty in older people: an umbrella review.The Journal of frailty & aging · 2025Pooled it
- Loneliness, social isolation, and living alone: a comprehensive systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression of mortality risks in older adults.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2025Pooled it
- Health Outcomes Associated with Loneliness and Social Isolation in Older Adults Living with HIV: A Systematic Review.AIDS and behavior · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of 90 cohort studies of social isolation, loneliness and mortality.Nature human behaviour · 2023Pooled it
- Multimorbidity, Loneliness, and Social Isolation. A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Pooled it
- Effect of telehealth yoga on loneliness and social isolation among rural older adults: a randomized controlled trial.Aging & mental health · 2025Trial
- Article
- Frailty Is Associated With All-Cause and Acute Hospitalisations During 18 Months Follow-Up in Older Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease.Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics · 2026Article
- Rethinking health-care systems to tackle social isolation and frailty.The Lancet. Public health · 2026Review
- 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
- Loneliness and Its Association with Depression, Aspiration Risk, and Conversation in Japanese Older Adults.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Social Media engagement and perceived social isolation among older adults in a changing digital environment: evidence from HINTS 2022-2024.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Characteristics of long stay home care clients' acute care use who live with frailty in Alberta, Canada: A retrospective cohort study.PloS one · 2026Article
- Development and Evaluation of a Brief Social Isolation Measure in the Nationally-Representative Health and Retirement Study.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Article
- Association Between the Serum Creatinine to Cystatin C Ratio, Physical Activity, and Frailty in Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China: A Nationwide Cohort Study.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Implementing a telephone-based support program to address loneliness in older adults.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Article
- Joint Physical-Psychosocial Frailty and Risks of All-Cause and Cause-Specific Premature Mortality.Journal of general internal medicine · 2025Article
- The Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam: design and cohort update 2025.European journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Changes in frailty predict social vulnerability among home care clients living in the community followed for ten years.The Journal of frailty & aging · 2025Article
- Association between cognitive reserve proxies and frailty phenotype: data from UK Biobank.GeroScience · 2025Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND/
objectivesFrailty, loneliness, and social isolation are all associated with adverse outcomes in older adults, but little is known about their combined impact on mortality.
designProspective cohort study.
settingThe Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam.
participantsCommunity-dwelling older adults aged 65 and older (n = 1,427). MEASUREMENTS: Frailty was measured with the frailty phenotype (Fried criteria). Loneliness was assessed with the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale. Social isolation was operationalized using information on partner status, social support, and network size. Two categorical variables were created, for each possible combination regarding frailty and loneliness (FL) and frailty and social isolation (FS), respectively. Mortality was monitored over a period of 22 years (1995-2017). Survival curves and Cox proportional hazard models were used to study the effects of the FL and FS combinations on mortality. Analyses were adjusted for sociodemographic factors, depression, chronic diseases, and smoking.
resultsFrailty prevalence was 13%, and 5.9% of the sample were frail and lonely, and 6.2% frail and socially isolated. In fully adjusted models, older adults who were only frail had a higher risk of mortality compared with people without any of the conditions (hazard ratio [HR] range = 1.40-1.48; P < .01). However, the highest risk of mortality was observed in people with a combined presence of frailty and loneliness or social isolation (HR
conclusionFrail older adults are at increased risk of mortality, but this risk is even higher for those who are also lonely or socially isolated. To optimize well-being and health outcomes in physically frail older adults, targeted interventions focusing on both subjective and objective social vulnerability are needed.
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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.