ArticleAmerican journal of health promotion : AJHP2025
Volunteering in Young Adulthood: Complex Associations With Later Health and Well-Being Outcomes.
Article in American journal of health promotion : AJHP, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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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
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Association Between Prosocial Behavior and Mental Health: A Three-Level Meta-Analysis.Journal of adolescence · 2026Pooled it
- Volunteering and Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes in Black Adolescents From Low-Income Families.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Bidirectional Associations Between Civic Engagement, Depressive Symptoms, and Suicidality in Youth: A Population-Based Study.Journal of adolescence · 2025Article
- Understanding the effects of volunteering on well-being: subjective, psychological, and social well-being, gratitude, and loneliness.BMC public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeTo investigate whether
designLongitudinal cohort study.
settingNational Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. SUBJECTS: U.S. adults from Wave IV (2008/2009; N = 12,234) and Wave V (2016-2018; N = 9,971). MEASURES: Any volunteering and nine types of volunteering (independent variables) and 41 health and well-being outcomes (dependent variables) using an outcome-wide approach with multiple linear-, logistic-, and generalized linear regressions.
resultsVolunteering in young adulthood was associated with better health behaviors (e.g., 34% decreased risk of binge drinking, 95% CI [0.54, 0.81]) and improved psychosocial and civic outcomes (e.g., lower depressive symptoms (β = -0.08, 95% CI [-0.14, -0.02]) in adulthood. Volunteering showed little evidence of associations with other health and well-being outcomes (e.g., loneliness, (β = -0.04, 95% CI [-0.09, 0.01])). Assessing volunteering by organization types showed a range of positive and negative outcomes. For example, volunteering in hospitals/nursing homes was associated with a 36% increased risk of high cholesterol (95% CI [1.06, 1.73]) and volunteering with political clubs was associated with a 52% increased risk of an anxiety diagnosis (95% CI [1.13, 2.05]).
conclusionOur findings suggest more work is needed to determine the conditions under which volunteering is health promoting and to minimize potential adverse effects associated with some types of volunteering.
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Registered trials
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