Abstract
Intergovernmental organizations, such as the World Health Organization, policymakers, scientists, and the public alike are recognizing the importance of loneliness for health/well-being outcomes. However, it remains unclear if loneliness in adolescence shapes health/well-being in adulthood. We examined if increase in loneliness during adolescence was associated with worse health/well-being in adulthood, across 41 outcomes. We conducted a longitudinal study using data from Add Health-a prospective and nationally representative cohort of community-dwelling U.S. adolescents. Using regression models, we evaluated if an increase in loneliness over 1 year (between Wave I, 1994-1995 and Wave II, 1996) was associated with worse health/well-being outcomes 11.37years later (in Wave IV, 2008; N= 11,040) or 20.64years later (in Wave V, 2016-2018; N= 9,003). Participants were aged 15.28years at study onset and aged 28.17 or 37.20 years during the final assessment. Participants with the highest (vs. lowest) loneliness had worse outcomes on 4 (of 7) mental health outcomes (e.g., higher likelihood of depression (relative risk= 1.25, confidence interval [CI]= 1.06, 1.49, p= .010), 3 (of 4) psychological well-being outcomes (e.g., lower optimism [β=-0.12, 95% CI=-0.23,-0.01, p= .030]), 2 (of 7) social outcomes (e.g., lower romantic relationship quality (β=-0.10, 95% CI=-0.19, 0.00, p= .043), one (of 13) physical health outcomes (e.g., higher likelihood of asthma (relative risk= 1.24, 95% CI= 1.01, 1.53, p= .041), and 0 (of 9) health behavior outcomes and 0 (of 2) civic/prosocial outcomes. These findings suggest the promise of testing scalable loneliness interventions and policies during adolescence to better determine their impact on various outcomes.
Published Version
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