ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
The balance of giving versus receiving social support and all-cause mortality in a US national sample.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Social frailty and mortality risk in middle-aged and older adults: a prospective cohort study.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Superwoman schema and metabolic syndrome in Black adolescent girls.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2025Article
- The independent and joint role of socioeconomic status and family relationships on mortality risk in China: cultural differences and health inequalities in the context of intergenerational cohabitation.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2025Article
- Reflections on resilience.Development and psychopathology · 2024Article
- The relationship between social support and professional identity of health professional students from a two-way social support theory perspective: chain mediating effects of achievement motivation and meaning in life.BMC medical education · 2024Observational
- The Effect of Long-Term (Im)balance of Giving Versus Receiving Support With Nonrelatives on Subjective Well-Being Among Home-Dwelling Older People.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2024Article
- Social support receipt as a predictor of mortality: A cohort study in rural South Africa.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- The association between social support provision, psychological capital, subjective well-being and sense of indebtedness among undergraduates with low socioeconomic status.BMC psychology · 2023Article
- Unpacking Psychological Vulnerabilities in Deaths of Despair.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Support-Giving Is Associated With Lower Systemic Inflammation.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2023Article
- Assessing Healthy Aging Score and Its Association With All-Cause Mortality: Findings From the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study.Innovation in aging · 2023Article
- Sex, love and oxytocin: Two metaphors and a molecule.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2022Review
- The Mediation Effect of Health Literacy on Social Support with Exchange and Depression in Community-Dwelling Middle-Aged and Older People in Taiwan.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
While numerous studies exist on the benefits of social support (both receiving and giving), little research exists on how the balance between the support that individuals regularly give versus that which they receive from others relates to physical health. In a US national sample of 6,325 adults from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, participants were assessed at baseline on hours of social support given and received on a monthly basis, with all-cause mortality data collected from the National Death Index over a 23-y follow-up period. Participants who were relatively balanced in the support they gave compared to what they received had a lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who either disproportionately received support from others (e.g., received more hours of support than they gave each month) or disproportionately gave support to others (e.g., gave many more hours of support a month than they received). These findings applied to instrumental social support (e.g., help with transportation, childcare). Additionally, participants who gave a moderate amount of instrumental social support had a lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who either gave very little support or those who gave a lot of support to others. Associations were evident over and above demographic, medical, mental health, and health behavior covariates. Although results are correlational, one interpretation is that promoting a balance, in terms of the support that individuals regularly give relative to what they receive in their social relationships, may not only help to strengthen the social fabric of society but may also have potential physical health benefits.
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