Social participation is crucial in good aging due to its connection to several health advantages, including improved cognitive health, healthy behaviors, self-rated health, and a decreased risk of depression, disability, and mortality. Some theoretical models of successful and healthy aging incorporate social engagement. Social participation involves connecting with others, working with or for others, giving back to society, and getting resources from it.
It involves informal support for families, friends, and Neighbours, community involvement, volunteering, and social relationships with families, friends, and communities. Age-related improvements in health, health perception, quality of life, and life satisfaction have all been linked to social engagement.
Canada’s Toronto – In a recent study, almost 7000 middle-aged and older Canadians were followed for about three years to see whether higher levels of social activity were linked to good aging in later life. They discovered that people who engaged in leisure activities and volunteer work had a higher likelihood of maintaining good health throughout the subsequent three-year study period and were less likely to experience issues with their physical, cognitive, mental, or emotional well-being. This study was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
The researchers determined that successful aging included high levels of self-reported satisfaction, sound physical and mental health, and the absence of any significant physical, cognitive, emotional, or mental problems that limit everyday activities. The researchers included only individuals who were effectively aging at the beginning of the study. It was intended to determine whether social engagement increased the likelihood that participants would stay in good health.
Involved in volunteer work or leisure activities at the start of the study, almost 72% of these respondents were still aging effectively three years later. At the end of the trial, just two-thirds of individuals who were not participating in these activities were aging successfully. The results showed that respondents who engaged in volunteer or charitable work were 15% and 17% more likely to maintain excellent health across the research after accounting for a wide range of sociodemographic variables.
The first author, Mabel Ho, a doctoral candidate at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) and the Institute of Life Course and Ageing at the University of Toronto, says that although the observational nature of the study makes it impossible to determine causality, it makes intuitive sense that social activity is associated with successful aging. Regardless of age, maintaining a social life is crucial.
Our mood can be improved, our loneliness and isolation can be diminished, and our physical and mental health can benefit from feeling involved and connected. Compared to past studies, the updated notion of successful aging established in this study is more inclusive and includes both objective and subjective indicators of healthy aging. Most earlier studies on successful aging typically categorized people with chronic medical issues as not “aging successfully.”
In the current study, participants with a chronic illness might still be considered “aging successfully” as long as they could carry out various everyday activities and were not experiencing incapacitating chronic pain. Incorporating older individuals’ subjective views on their aging process, physical and mental health, and self-reported emotional well-being, including happiness and life satisfaction, is part of the new definition. The subjective experiences of aging among older persons were disregarded mainly in earlier studies.
