Elsevier

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 56, Issue 8, April 2003, Pages 1817-1830
Social Science & Medicine

Social relations and self-reported health: a prospective analysis of the French Gazel cohort

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(02)00181-8Get rights and content

Abstract

Social networks and social support are strongly associated with health, yet the pathways between social relations and health are not well understood. In one of the very few studies on this issue conducted in France, we used data from the French GAZEL cohort of employees of the national gas and electricity company, to (1) explore the relationship between the structure and function of the social environment upon self-reported health and (2) test the hypothesis that social relations directly affect health. In a prospective analysis over a 12-month follow-up period, we found that a lack of social support and dissatisfaction with social relations are predictive of poor health status, while weak social networks are not. Thus, functional aspects of social relations are better predictors of poor health than the structure of social interactions. Low social support was an independent risk factor for poor health in men and women: for men the effect was strongest among individuals who held a high occupational status, for women among those in high and low occupational groups. This study suggests that in France social relations exert an independent effect on health, modified by gender and socio-economic factors. Our results indicate that both clinicians in their practice and researchers may do well to focus increased attention on the health impact of social support.

Introduction

Although over the past 20 years, evidence for the association between social relations and health has accumulated (Berkman, 1984; House, Landis, & Umbertson, 1988; Berkman, Glass, Brissette, & Seeman, 2000), the health impact of the social environment received little research attention in France (Antonucci, Fuhrer, & Dartigues, 1997; Briancon et al., 1985). Several studies have shown that social networks, the structural aspect of social relations, predict mortality (Berkman & Syme, 1979; Blazer, 1982; House, Robbins, & Metzner, 1982; Kawachi et al., 1996; Orth-Gomer & Johnson, 1987; Seeman et al., 1993a; Vogt, Mullooly, Ernst, Pope, & Hollis, 1992). Hypothesized to exert a very general effect upon health for a number of reasons, social networks are associated with cardiovascular mortality and morbidity (Kawachi et al., 1996; Olsen, 1993), with the recovery from myocardial infarction, cancer and stroke (Vogt et al., 1992; Berkman, 1995), the occurrence of psychiatric disorders (Fratiglioni, Wang, Ericsson, Maytan, & Winblad, 2000; Stansfeld, Rael, Head, Shipley, & Marmot, 1997; Stansfeld, Fuhrer, & Shipley, 1998b), quality of life (Achat et al., 1998), health functioning (Michael, Colditz, Coakley, & Kawachi, 1999; Stansfeld, Bosma, Hemingway, & Marmot, 1998a) and health status (Krantz & Orth, 2000; Litwin, 1998).

The association of social support with mortality and morbidity (Blazer, 1982; House et al., 1988; Fuhrer et al., 1999; Liang et al., 1999), as well as with self-assessments of health status (Minkler, Satariano, & Langhauser, 1983; Krause, 1987; Franks, Campbell & Shields, 1992; Baker & Taylor, 1997; Hillen, Schaub, Hiestermann, Kirshner, & Robra, 2000; Krantz & Orth, 2000; Lindstrom, Sundquist, & Ostergren, 2001) has also been consistently demonstrated. An important aim of research in this area is to clarify these paradigms and test their distinct association with health outcomes.

The causal relationship between social relations and health is not well understood, and social networks are likely to work through multiple pathways: behavioral and material, psychological and physiological (see Berkman et al. (2000) for an in-depth review). First, extensive social ties might increase the likelihood that individuals engage in health-promoting behaviors (physical activity, beneficial dietary practices) or refrain from health-damaging ones (cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol drinking). In addition, among individuals experiencing health problems, those with adequate social support will receive advice, services, material or financial aid from others, and thus will likely benefit from better medical and non-medical care (Berkman, 1984). Second, poor social relations affect psychological health. A lack of sufficient social support is associated with lower self-efficacy, which, in turn, has been shown to predict worse health outcomes. What is more, social networks and social support are also directly associated with the occurrence of psychiatric illness, and particularly depression (Blazer, Hughes, & George, 1992; Stansfeld et al., 1998b; Vilhjalmsson, 1993; Oxman & Hull, 2001). In addition, depression may also influence the quality of social relations. Another understudied psychological factor is the sense of meaning and purpose largely influenced by social interactions, which is thought to be a precondition for good health. Finally, there is increasing evidence about complex pathological mechanisms, which are likely to mediate the impact of social relations on well-being. Social isolation has been hypothesized to act as a chronic stressor, resulting in the accelerated aging of the human organism (Berkman, 1988; Seeman & McEwen, 1996). Animal as well as human studies have provided strong evidence for neuroendocrine changes, specifically in cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine levels, induced by social isolation (Seeman, Berkman, Blazer, & Row, 1993b). In addition, social relations are also hypothesized to alter the immune system, influencing the body's susceptibility to illness (Cohen, Doyle, Skoner, Rabin, & Gwaltney, 1997).

Broadly speaking, there are two ways in which social factors are thought to exert an impact on health (Cohen & Willis, 1985). First, social networks and social support might “buffer” the health effects of stressful life events. According to this hypothesis, there is an interaction between social relations and life events, and life events only have a detrimental effect on well being in the absence of an adequate social environment. The finding that perceived social support has been shown to buffer the risk of depression among individuals exposed to stressful life events seems to support this paradigm (Cohen & Willis, 1985; Vilhjalmsson, 1993). With regard to mental health outcomes, the evidence is strong that social support buffers life events, although several recent studies have also found support for the independent health effects of poor social ties (Liang et al., 1999; Stansfeld, Bosma, Hemingway, & Marmot (1998a), Stansfeld, Fuhrer, & Shipley (1998b), Stansfeld, Rael, Head, Shipley, & Marmot (1997)).

According to the “main effects” model, positive as well as negative aspects of social relations exert an independent effect on health. Thus, poor social networks and a lack of social support act as stressors and contribute to poor health in and of themselves, while extended social networks and satisfactory social support enhance well being. This hypothesis is illustrated by the consistent main effect associations between a lack of social relations and all-cause mortality (Berkman & Glass, 2000, p. 151–153). The scientific debate regarding the definition and optimal measurement of social relations adds to the lack of consensus on the causal pathways between the social environment and health and has been the cause of inconsistent results in the field. A greater concern about the development of theoretically based instruments (Berkman & Seeman, 1986) has led to the demonstration of the complex relationship between social networks and social support (Seeman & Berkman, 1988). A psychometric analysis of the Berkman Syme Social Network Index (SNI) in an elderly population, has argued for the presence of four dimensions of social networks, concurring with four groups of social counterparts: children, friends, relatives and a confidant (Glass, Mendes de Leon, Seeman, & Berkman, 1997). This finding confirms prior research, which indicated that the size of the social network, and not the identity of its members, has an effect on health (Berkman, 1987).

The purpose of the current study is to determine whether social networks and social support are associated with self-reported health status in a cross-sectional analysis, and whether they predict self-reported health over a 1-year follow-up in a population of middle-aged men and women who are part of an ongoing occupational cohort of gas and electricity workers in France. A single-item measure of self-rated health status has been shown to be an accurate predictor of mortality and chronic morbidity (Idler & Benyamini, 1997; Moller, Kristensen, & Hollnagel, 1996). As such, it is a useful indicator of health status in young and middle-aged populations. This study also offers an opportunity to examine the SNI questionnaire in its French version. It allows us to add to the existing cross-cultural evidence for the importance of the association between social relations and health.

Section snippets

Study population

The Gazel cohort was recruited in 1989 among employees of France's national gas and electricity company: Eléctricité de France-Gaz de France (EDF-GDF). At that time, 20 624 employees gave consent to participate in this study of a variety of health-related risk factors, referred to as an “epidemiological laboratory” (Goldberg et al., 1994). At baseline, in 1989, the cohort comprised men aged 40–50 and women aged 35–50 (Goldberg et al. (1990a), Goldberg et al. (1990b)). The volunteers are followed

Cross-sectional study

Among the 11 105 men and 4070 women who responded to the 1994 questionnaire, respectively, 18.5% and 22.9% reported being in poor health. Among men and women, the social support scale correlated with the SRS (respectively rho=0.41 and rho=0.44), as well as with the SNI (respectively rho=0.26 and rho=0.28). There was no association between the SNI and SRS (among men rho=0.04, among women rho=0.03). Table 1 shows the distribution of demographic, behavioral and occupational characteristics in

Discussion

We studied the relationship between social networks, satisfaction with social relations and social support and self-reported health among middle-aged men and women participating in the Gazel cohort study. In the cross-sectional part of our study, for men social isolation, poor satisfaction with social relations and inadequate social support were associated with poor health, while for women social support was the most significant predictor. In the prospective part of our study these results were

Conclusion

Our study found that social support and overall satisfaction with social relations, as well as occupational status, are predictive of self-reported health. The role of social relations in affecting specific health outcomes, over longer periods of follow-up, requires further study. Nevertheless, these results confirm the importance of social factors in determining the well-being of a cohort of French volunteers and indicate that both clinicians in their practice and researchers may do well to

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their gratitude to all the volunteers of the Gazel cohort, EDF-GDF, especially the Service des Etudes Médicales and the members of the Gazel study team, in particular Isabelle Bugel, Sébastien Bonenfant and Jean-François Chastang for their technical assistance. Our thanks go to Steven Gortmaker and Maria Glymour for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

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