Wellbeing in older age
What social contexts and experiences in childhood
and early adulthood promote wellbeing in later life? And does
wellbeing protect against functional
ageing?
Research programme: Wellbeing in older age
(2013-)
Programme leader: Dr Mai
Stafford
Other LHA senior scientists: Dr Rebecca Hardy, Professor Diana Kuh, Professor Marcus Richards
External
collaborators:
For collaborators on this
programme please click here
Healthy ageing requires good objective function physically,
cognitively, and socially and having a positive state of mind. This
programme aims to determine what factors from childhood,
adolescence and throughout adulthood, promote positive
psychological wellbeing and social integration in older age. Since
2010, UK Government has been committed to monitoring and
understanding national wellbeing and this new programme brings a
life course perspective to help improve our knowledge of how
social, economic and health domains across life may act together to
influence psychological wellbeing in later life. With 2012
designated the European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity
between Generations, identifying ways to support the capability to
remain socially integrated is also a priority.
Psychological wellbeing is multidimensional. In the first five
years of this programme, the focus will be on:
- social integration (i.e. the degree to which an individual is
interrelated with others in society, measured by social cohesion,
ties with family, friends, neighbours and colleagues, participation
in clubs and organisations, and social support)
- mastery (i.e. a person’s perception of their ability to manage
their life circumstances)
- purpose in life (i.e. having goals for one’s life and feeling
that life has purpose, involving a process of reflecting back over
experiences and accomplishments so far)
- global wellbeing
We have selected these dimensions because we want to explore the
experiences and events over a life time that may influence
psychological and social growth and adaptation.
Main objectives for 2013-2018
The key aims of this new programme are to:
- describe wellbeing among older people and how this is shaped by
the childhood and adult social context and experiences;
- assess the bi-directional links between wellbeing and
biological ageing and identify what distinguishes people who
maintain high wellbeing despite health or other challenges.
This will be achieved through several projects which
investigate:
- continuity of social integration across the life course
- prospective associations between social and psychological
wellbeing and functional ageing, including underlying biological
pathways
- lifetime individual and contextual factors that promote
psychological and social wellbeing and adaptation in later
life