Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Turku and Helsinki, Finland.
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.
Am J Epidemiol. 2018 Apr 1;187(4):746-753. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwx301.
The size of a person's social network is linked to health and longevity, but it is unclear whether the number of strong social ties or the number of weak social ties is most influential for health. We examined social network characteristics as predictors of mortality in the Finnish Public Sector Study (n = 7,617) and the Health and Social Support Study (n = 20,816). Social network characteristics were surveyed at baseline in 1998. Information about mortality was obtained from the Finnish National Death Registry. During a mean follow-up period of 16 years, participants with a small social network (≤10 members) were more likely to die than those with a large social network (≥21 members) (adjusted hazard ratio (HR) = 1.23, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.04, 1.46). Mortality risk was increased among participants with both a small number of strong ties (≤2 members) and a small number of weak ties (≤5 members) (HR = 1.55, 95% CI: 1.26, 1.79) and among participants with both a large number of strong ties and a small number of weak ties (HR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.08, 1.52), but not among those with a small number of strong ties and a large number of weak ties (HR = 1.04, 95% CI: 0.87, 1.25). These findings suggest that in terms of mortality risk, the number of weak ties may be an important component of social networks.
一个人的社交网络规模与健康和长寿有关，但目前尚不清楚是强社交关系的数量还是弱社交关系的数量对健康的影响最大。我们研究了社交网络特征作为芬兰公共部门研究（n=7617）和健康与社会支持研究（n=20816）中死亡率的预测因素。社交网络特征在 1998 年基线调查中进行了调查。死亡率信息来自芬兰国家死亡登记处。在平均 16 年的随访期间，社交网络较小（≤10 人）的参与者比社交网络较大（≥21 人）的参与者更有可能死亡（调整后的危险比（HR）=1.23，95%置信区间（CI）：1.04，1.46）。社交网络中强关系数量较少（≤2 人）和弱关系数量较少（≤5 人）（HR=1.55，95%CI：1.26，1.79）以及强关系数量大且弱关系数量少（HR=1.28，95%CI：1.08，1.52）的参与者死亡风险增加，但社交网络中强关系数量少且弱关系数量多（HR=1.04，95%CI：0.87，1.25）的参与者则不然。这些发现表明，就死亡率风险而言，弱关系的数量可能是社交网络的一个重要组成部分。
