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Objective:

To assess the relationship between social network size and prospective mortality risk among a large sample of older, Caucasian women.

Method:

The study included 7524 Caucasian community-dwelling women, age 65 or older (mean age= 74.1), who participated from four US communities. Study participants completed a protocol that included anthropomorphic and health assessments at baseline and the Lubben Social Network Scale at year 2. We followed participants for an average of 6 years after they had completed the year-2 assessment. We used hospital records and a copy of the participant's official death certificate to document mortality and cause of death in accordance to ICD-9 revision codes.

Results:

A total of 1451 deaths (19.3% of sample) were observed over follow-up, 215 (3.4%) due to cardiovascular causes. Higher social network scores were a robust predictor of lower multivariate-adjusted …