Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 920 McClung Tower, 1115 Volunteer Blvd., Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
J Aging Health. 2010 Feb;22(1):84-105. doi: 10.1177/0898264309351310. Epub 2009 Nov 17.
The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to examine the association between volunteering and trajectories of depression; and (2) to evaluate whether this relationship varies by age.
Data come from three waves of the Americans' Changing Lives (ACL) study. ACL is a nationally representative sample of adults 25 years of age or older who lived in the United States.
Latent growth model analysis indicates that although volunteering is associated with lower levels of baseline depression, it does not predict trajectories of depression. Nevertheless, further analyses reveal an age variation in the relationship between volunteering and trajectories of depression. Specifically, we find that volunteering affects the decline of depression for individuals above age 65; yet there is no effect of volunteering on trajectories of depression for younger and middle-aged adults.
Overall findings highlight the importance of assessing the long-term health impact of volunteering and doing so under diverse social structural contexts.
本研究旨在双重探讨：（1）志愿活动与抑郁轨迹之间的关系；（2）评估这种关系是否因年龄而异。
数据来自美国人生活变化（ACL）研究的三个波次。ACL 是一项具有全国代表性的 25 岁及以上成年人样本，他们居住在美国。
潜在增长模型分析表明，尽管志愿活动与较低水平的基线抑郁相关，但它不能预测抑郁轨迹。然而，进一步的分析揭示了志愿活动与抑郁轨迹之间关系的年龄差异。具体来说，我们发现志愿活动影响了 65 岁以上人群抑郁的下降；然而，志愿活动对年轻和中年成年人的抑郁轨迹没有影响。
总体研究结果强调了评估志愿活动的长期健康影响的重要性，并在不同的社会结构背景下进行评估。
