Social Network Type and Health among Older Americans

Our prime interest in this chapter concerns the health consequences of embeddedness in social network types that are characterized by different levels of social capital. The construct of social network type was developed to provide a means by which to take the complexity of the interpersonal environment in late life into account. This book chapter focuses on the social network types that are prevalent among older Americans i.e. “friends”, “diverse”, “congregant”, “family” and “restricted”, and their associations with health. It reviews recent analytical studies that we performed based on data from the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), and introduces a new analysis of the data examining the relationship between social network types and the key functional and physical health indicators of self-reported disability and subjective health. The findings show, in general, that older people who are embedded in social network types characterized by greater social capital tend to be emotionally and physically healthier and tend to adopt more health-promoting behaviors. Finally we discuss the practical implications and future research that follow from our results.