ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2024
Longitudinal associations between loneliness, social isolation, and healthcare utilisation trajectories: a latent growth curve analysis.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Interventions against loneliness and social isolation in older adults- a systematic review.BMC public health · 2026Pooled it
- Investigating relationships between loneliness, social isolation and health.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The dynamic association between loneliness and social participation among Chinese middle-aged and older adults.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Social Trust Profile Transitions and Health-Seeking Behavior: A Latent Transition Analysis of Three-Wave Panel Data from China.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Examining associations of social disconnectedness change patterns with subsequent healthcare utilization and costs among public healthcare users in Central Singapore.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The role of three important psychosocial factors on adherence to lung cancer screening recommendations in high-risk populations.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Associations of social isolation and loneliness with healthcare utilization among older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Innovation in aging · 2026Review
- The impact of loneliness on healthcare costs and service utilisation and the cost-effectiveness of loneliness interventions: systematic review.BJPsych open · 2025Review
- Trajectories of loneliness in later life - Evidence from a 10-year English panel study.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Gender differences in the association between smoking and the risk of suicide in depressed patients: a longitudinal national cohort study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Community Health Dialogue Implementation for the Solution of Loneliness in Rural Communities: Autoethnography.Cureus · 2024Article
- Chronic loneliness and the risk of incident stroke in middle and late adulthood: a longitudinal cohort study of U.S. older adults.EClinicalMedicine · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeTo explore the longitudinal associations between eight-year trajectories of loneliness, social isolation and healthcare utilisation (i.e. inpatient, outpatient, and nursing home care) in US older adults.
methodsThe study used data from the Health and Retirement Study in 2006-2018, which included a nationally representative sample of American adults aged 50 and above (N = 6,832). We conducted latent growth curve models to assess the associations between trajectories of loneliness and isolation and healthcare utilisation over 8 years.
resultsIndependent of sociodemographic and health-related confounders, social deficits were associated with a lower likelihood of baseline physician visits (loneliness β= -0.15, SE = 0.08; social isolation β= -0.19, SE = 0.08), but there was a positive association between loneliness and number of physician visits (β = 0.06, SE = 0.03), while social isolation was associated with extended hospital (β = 0.07, SE = 0.04) and nursing home stays (β = 0.05, SE = 0.02). Longer nursing home stays also predicted better trajectories of loneliness and isolation over time.
conclusionLoneliness and social isolation are cross-sectionally related to complex patterns of different types of healthcare. There was no clear evidence that social deficits led to specific trajectories of healthcare utilisation, but nursing home stays may over time help provide social contact, supporting trajectories of isolation and potentially loneliness. Non-clinical services such as social prescribing could have the potential to address unmet social needs and further promote patients' health-seeking profiles for improving healthcare equity.
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