Social networks and wellbeing: A mixed-methods study in an older community

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Lea Ellwardt
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 454899704

Relevance and shortcoming: Integration into social networks greatly promotes mental and physical health. Unfortunately, in times of progressively destabilized family and non-family networks, a growing number of people will not be able to call on a large support network in old age. Social isolation is most prevalent among the very old, and the associated risk of early mortality is comparable to other well-established risk factors, such as smoking. Problematically, traditional research designs in the fields of gerontology and epidemiology have not adequately elicited real-life social networks. This yields the danger of generating incomplete, if not false, conclusions on the association between social integration and health in late life.Aim and innovation: This project seeks to identify which kinds of social networks are associated with positive health outcomes in older adults. This is done by an entirely new approach: I develop and apply methods of longitudinal social network analysis in the field of social gerontology and epidemiology. To overcome previous theoretical and methodological shortcomings, the project emphasizes the structure of social networks, specifically the quantity and quality of connections among the people in an older adult’s network. Methodology and contribution: I propose a multi-method interdisciplinary approach by combining different strands of literature and collecting data on the social networks of older adults in a new fashion. Specifically, I implement a mixed-methods case study for which I collect quantitative and qualitative network data within several community centers. The results, which will be publicized through two Ph.D. theses, will provide policy makers and scholars in the field with a diagnostic tool that allows a more sophisticated and realistic risk assessment of poor social integration than traditional tools.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants