Katz Benjamin, Turney Indira, Lee Ji Hyun, Amini Reza, Ajrouch Kristine, Antonucci Toni
Department of Human Development and Family Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA,USA.
Department of Neurology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Res Hum Dev. 2020;17(1):57-77. doi: 10.1080/15427609.2020.1743809. Epub 2020 Jul 1.
Overall social network size, often the sum of common lifetime relationships, including children, family, and friends, has been linked to cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's Disease. However, little research has examined the association between network size composition and cognitive function in middle-aged and older adults in the context of race/ethnicity. We investigated the associations between the number of close children, family, and friends independently with executive function (EF) and memory across a subsample of non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White participants who completed the Health and Retirement Study Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (N = 2,395). We found that network size composition was more closely linked to EF than memory and that these associations varied by race/ethnicity. Specifically, the strongest associations existed between EF and quadratic estimates of the number of close children of non-Hispanic Black participants, and number of close family members for Hispanic participants. Among Black participants, a curvilinear relationship indicated that two close children were associated with greater EF, while a smaller or larger number of close children were associated with lower EF. On the other hand, among Hispanic participants, higher EF was associated with fewer (0-1) and greater (4-5+) numbers of family member contacts. Overall, these results indicate that examining children, family, and friends independently may be more useful than the common practice of aggregation of overall network size, especially in the context of race/ethnicity.
总体社交网络规模通常是一生中包括子女、家人和朋友在内的所有关系的总和，它与认知障碍和阿尔茨海默病有关联。然而，在种族/民族背景下，很少有研究探讨社交网络规模构成与中老年成年人认知功能之间的关联。我们在完成了健康与退休研究统一认知评估方案的非西班牙裔黑人、西班牙裔和非西班牙裔白人参与者子样本（N = 2395）中，分别调查了亲密子女、家人和朋友的数量与执行功能（EF）及记忆之间的关联。我们发现社交网络规模构成与EF的联系比与记忆的联系更为紧密，并且这些关联因种族/民族而异。具体而言，EF与非西班牙裔黑人参与者亲密子女数量的二次估计值以及西班牙裔参与者亲密家庭成员数量之间存在最强的关联。在黑人参与者中，一种曲线关系表明两个亲密子女与更高的EF相关，而亲密子女数量较少或较多则与较低的EF相关。另一方面，在西班牙裔参与者中，EF较高与较少（0 - 1个）和较多（4 - 5个及以上）的家庭成员联系相关。总体而言，这些结果表明，分别考察子女、家人和朋友可能比通常汇总总体社交网络规模的做法更有用，尤其是在种族/民族背景下。
