SOCIAL NETWORKS AND HEALTH 2017 workshop

1. Lean on my Network: Depressive
Symptoms, Physical Health, and Gender in
Different-Sex Older Adult Couples
Peter Vielehr, MA
5/22/17

2. Mental health and the life course
• Psychological distress is often more likely in late life than throughout
adulthood (Mirowsky and Ross 1992).
• Often, distress is related to social isolation and lack of social support
(Cornwell and Waite 2009).
• Physical health declines can lead to increases in psychological
distress.
• Poor physical health makes maintaining social relationships more difficult
while increasing reliance on significant others.

3. Networks and mental health
• Social ties are important resources for sustaining psychological
wellbeing.
• Networks are the source of social support
• Gender may influence the formation and maintenance of social ties in other-
sex couples.
• Women often take on emotional caretaking roles and may be more likely to do the
emotional labor required to sustain social ties over time.
• People in relationships often report fewer depressive symptoms than
single, divorced, or widowed individuals.
• Partnered people can show a range of experiences with mental health.
• The relationship quality and social support present are important factors for
psychological resilience.

4. Gender and Mental Health
• Bird and Reiker’s (2008) constrained choices model

5. Questions
• When physical health is challenged, do social networks offset
depressive symptoms?
• For cohabiting couples, are partners’ social networks resources that
can contribute to emotional wellbeing?
• Does this differ by gender?

6. Hypotheses
• Integration into a partner’s network will be protective against the
negative impacts of poor self rated health.
• Men will gain more benefit from their spouse’s network than women.

7. Methods
• Data from wave 2 (2010-2011) of the National Social Life Health and
Aging Project
• Nationally representative sample of older adults
• Wave 2 interviewed both members of cohabiting couples
• Actor-Partner Interdependence Model
• Distinguishable by gender
• Heterogeneous Compound Symmetry for residual variances by gender
• Multiple imputation used due to missing data
• Primarily missing on income variable
• Dependent Variable: 11-item version of the CES-D
• Averaged

8. The Actor-Partner Interdependence Model
Spouse 1 IV
Spouse 2 DV
Spouse 1 DV
Spouse 2 IV
Actor Effect
Actor Effect
Partner
Effects
e1
e2

9. Independent Variables
Actor Variables Partner Variables Couple Variables
Gender Logged income
Self-Rated Health
Coded as Poor, Fair, or Good (ref.)
Self-Rated Health
Age
Age squared
Race/Ethnicity
Black, Latino, Other, White (ref.)
Education
< HS, HS, >HS (ref.)
Network Degree (Nominal, ref=6) Network Degree
Network Density Network Density
Spousal Connectedness Spousal Connectedness

10. Network Variables
• Networks treated as independent variables.
• Ego-network collected through 3 name generators
• Primary name generator-5 names
• Second-spouse if not named earlier
• Third-one additional name
• Edge lists imported with egonetR
• Measures
• Degree
• Spousal connectedness- igraph::strength()
• 𝐸 𝑤 𝑁
• Density (mean tie strength)- sna::gden()
• 𝐸 𝑤
𝑛∗(𝑛−1)
2

11. Results
• Main Effects
• Significant effects for: Female (+), Age(-), Age squared(+), Fair Health(+), Poor
Health(+), and having a partner reporting seven alters(+)
• No other significant network effects
• Interaction Effects
• Connectedness
• Female X Connectedness in Partner’s Network X Self-rated Health (Fair and Poor)
• Density
• Female X Density-Actor’s Network X Self-Rated Health (Poor)

12. 2.8
2.9
3
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
Low Connetctedness High Connectedness
DepressiveSymptoms
Gender and Connectedness in Partner's Network
Moderating Self-Rated Health's influence on Depressive
Symptoms
Women, Poor Health
Men, Poor Health
Women, Fair Health
Men, Fair Health
Women, Good Health
Men, Good Health

13. 2.8
2.9
3
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
Low Density-Actor High Density-Actor
DepressiveSymptoms
Gender and Density in Actor's Network Moderating Self-Rated
Health's influence on Depressive Symptoms
Women, Poor Health
Women, Good Health
Men, Poor Health
Men, Good Health

14. Discussion
• Being connected within a partner’s network is associated with fewer
depressive symptoms for men in fair and poor health
• With fair health, women have higher distress with higher
connectedness
• Being central to a partner’s network while managing chronic health issues
may cause stress
• Gender creates unique constraints for women in social networks
• These are in relation to their partner’s network as well

16. The Actor-Partner Interdependence Model
• Modeling processes within relationships provides both opportunities
and challenges.
• Opportunities:
• How one partner effects the other can be modeled.
• Actor effects may be contingent based on partner independent variables
• i.e. a partner’s access to resources may moderate an actor effect.
• Other-sex couples provide a distinguishable case where gendered interactions can be
examined.
• Both individual and couple-level independent variables can be modeled.
• Challenges:
• Statistical dependence and biased standard errors.
• Two group members limits number of random effects to only an intercept.
• Several ways to overcome limitations, I use multilevel modeling