The association between loneliness and health – a survey-based study among middle-aged and older adults in Denmark

ABSTRACT

Background: While the association between overall poor health and loneliness among older adults continues to be examined closely, less attention has been given to middle-aged adults. This paper examines the relationship between loneliness and health as measured by self-rated health, physical ability and multi-morbidity in a large sample of Danish adults between the ages of 52–92 years. Furthermore, it identifies vulnerable groups with regard to the year of birth and gender.

Method: We apply the survey-study method, using data collected by The Danish National Centre for Social Research in 2012. We analysed the association between loneliness and health in 9154 Danish adults through multi-variate regression analyses adjusting for the year of birth, gender, marital status, cohabitation status, employment status and home ownership.

Results: We found that loneliness was associated with increased risks of poor self-rated health (OR, 2.58; 95% Cl, 1.20–3.35), limited physical abilities (OR, 1.91; 95% Cl, 1.58–2.32) and multiple diagnoses (OR, 1.77; 95% Cl, 1.48–2.12). Lonely middle-aged adults (52–62 years of age) had an increased risk of having limited physical abilities.

Conclusion: Among middle-aged and older Danish adults, loneliness was strongly associated with poor self-rated health, limited physical ability and multi-morbidity.

KEYWORDS:

• Loneliness
• self-rated health
• multi-morbidity
• physical ability
• ageing

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Danish National Centre for Social Research for providing us with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Ageing. The authors Mathilde Amalie Buchwald Jessen and Anna Vera Jørring Pallesen are joint first authors.