ArticleApplied psychology. Health and well-being2025
Longitudinal associations between well-being, hair cortisol, and self-reported health.
Article in Applied psychology. Health and well-being, 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
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Music making and wellbeing: A systematic review of methods, musical activities, and outcomes.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2026Pooled it
- Hair cortisol and cortisone and psychological well-being: an analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Perceived stress precedes declines in Well-being: A prospective study of stress, well-being, hair cortisol, and low-grade inflammation in hospital employees.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Longitudinal associations between well-being, hair cortisol, and self-reported health.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
This pre-registered study examines the longitudinal relationships between well-being, hair cortisol (a biomarker linked to poor health), and self-reported health. Accumulated cortisol output over three months was determined quarterly over the course of one year using hair samples. Well-being was assessed as affective well-being (via experience sampling), cognitive well-being (i.e., life satisfaction), and eudaimonic well-being (via the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being). Self-reported health was measured using one item on the current state of health. The longitudinal analyses allowed for disentangling initial between-person differences from within-person changes and were based on a large panel study of working-age people (N = 726). The results indicate that hair cortisol levels were generally not associated with any of the examined well-being facets, regardless of the level of analysis. Further, deviations from well-being trait levels were not linked to subsequent within-person changes in hair cortisol (and vice versa), challenging the notion that cortisol output is a key physiological pathway through which well-being improves health. In contrast, self-reported health was positively correlated with affective, cognitive, and eudaimonic well-being at both the trait and within-person levels, whereas deviations from well-being trait levels were generally not associated with subsequent within-person changes in self-reported health, and vice versa.
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Registered trials
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.