Street Subculture: Children's Livelihood Strategies for Surviving on the Streets of Addis Ababa

SummarySociality has been linked to a longer lifespan in many mammals, including humans. Yet, how sociality results in survival benefits remains unclear. Using 10 years of data and over 1,000 recorded injuries in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), we tested two injury-related mechanisms by which social status and affiliative partners might influence survival. Injuries increased individual risk of death by 3-fold in this dataset. We found that sociality can affect individuals’ survival by reducing their risk of injury but had no effect on the probability of injured individuals dying. Both males and females of high social status (measured as female matrilineal rank and male group tenure) and females with more affiliative partners (estimated using the number of female relatives) experienced fewer injuries and thus were less likely to die. Collectively, our results offer rare insights into one mechanism that can mediate the well-known benefits of sociality on an individual’s fitness.

Quality versus quantity: do weak bonds enhance the fitness of female baboons?

In many social species, group members form strong social bonds. Such strong bonds are well-known to generate long-term fitness benefits, but they are also expected to influence short-term behavioural decisions. Here, we use field observations and an experimental manipulation to investigate whether variation in social-bond strength (as determined from grooming interactions) influences nearest-neighbour choices while foraging in wild dwarf mongooses (Helogale parvula). Preferred grooming partnerships (PGPs), representing particularly strong bonds, were found predominately between male–female dyads but among a range of dominance-status dyads. When searching for food, dwarf mongooses with PGPs were more likely than expected by chance to forage close to a preferred grooming partner. Foraging near a strongly bonded groupmate might reduce the predation risk or increase foraging opportunities and the transfer of social information. In addition, there could be stress-reducing benefits, although our field experiment provided no evidence that nearest-neighbour preferences for strongly bonded groupmates were additionally favoured, or indeed disrupted, in the aftermath of a short-term stressful event. Investigating the potential influence of strong social bonds on short-term behavioural decisions with potential fitness consequences is important for our understanding of social interactions and cooperation. Enduring, close social bonds between individuals provide considerable long-term health and fitness benefits, but are also expected to influence short-term behavioural decisions. We investigated whether social-bond strength (as determined from grooming interactions) influenced foraging decisions in cooperatively breeding dwarf mongoose groups. We found particularly strong social bonds in the form of preferred grooming partnerships in a subset of male–female dyads. Dwarf mongoose foraging decisions were affected by the strength of their social relationships with groupmates: individuals with preferred grooming partners preferred to have these individuals as their nearest neighbours when searching for food. We used a field-based experimental manipulation to investigate whether stressful events impact nearest-neighbour choices, but found no evidence that preferences to forage near strongly bonded groupmates were disrupted or more additionally favoured in the aftermath of a stressful event. Our current work extends understanding of how social bonds can potentially influence within-group behaviour.

Across countries, demand for gender-affirming care is rising at unprecedented rates. 1 Services are struggling to adapt and some are failing to protect transgender health in fundamental ways. Given the complexity of this situation, both medically and politically, it is perhaps unsurprising that gender identity services have neglected to expand beyond addressing individual needs of transgender people themselves to integrate members of transgender people's social networks throughout care. Relational partners (e.g., parents, romantic partners,

We examined the hypothesis that black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM) who have supportive social relationships with other people are less likely to have unrecognized HIV infection compared with MSM of color who report lower levels of social support. We interviewed 1286 black and Latino MSM without known HIV infection in three metropolitan areas who were recruited using respondent driven sampling. Participants completed a computer-administered questionnaire and were tested for HIV. Unrecognized HIV infection was found in 118 men (9.2%). MSM who scored higher on the supportive relationship index had significantly lower odds of testing HIV-positive in the study. The mediation analysis identified two possible behavioral pathways that may partially explain this association: men who had strong supportive relationships were more likely to have had a test for HIV infection in the past 2 years and less likely to have recently engaged in high-risk sexual behavior. The findings illuminate the protective role of social relationships among MSM of color in our sample.

RationaleSocial relationships are important in bolstering health and well-being for everyone in the general population. For transgender people, strong supportive social relationships may be paramount to their overall health and well-being due to their marginalised status in society. ObjectiveThis review aimed to investigate what is currently known about the social relationship experiences of transgender people and their relational partners (e.g., family members, romantic partners). MethodsThirty-nine qualitative papers were extracted from Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane, and PubMed that related to social relationships of transgender people. These papers were analysed via a qualitative meta-synthesis. ResultsForty-nine second-order themes were identified, initially organised into relational partner clusters (e.g., family, friends, work colleagues) for specific phenomena, then these were synthesized into five overarching conceptual themes: (1) Development of relationships through transition and beyond, (2) Coping strategies of transgender people and their relational partners, (3) Reciprocal support in social relationships, (4) Stigma enacted and ameliorated interpersonally, and (5) Influence of stigma on social health and well-being. Discussion and conclusionsThese overarching themes show the potential characteristics that assist in the health-buffering role of social relationships for transgender people and their relational partners. Of particular note, stigma was reported as a common negative experience by transgender people and their relational partners, and open communicative social relationships had positive effects on self-conceptualisations of identity, which were inferred to protect against the damaging effects of stigma. We discuss the various implications and applications of this meta-synthesis to future research and clinical settings as well as how it can inform healthcare policy to support transgender people.

Examinations, a salient stressor for undergraduates, arouse negative emotions that can hinder performance. Supportive social relationships may be advantageous during exam periods given that social baseline theory proposes that strong social relationships help one manage stressors effectively and efficiently. This experience sampling study examined the roles of two facets of supportive relationships, emotional closeness and interpersonal emotion regulation (ER), in daily affect around exam days and in perceived exam performance. A sample of 191 Canadian undergraduates completed baseline measures and daily prompts for one month. Baseline measures gauged emotional closeness and interpersonal ER; daily prompts assessed perceived emotional closeness, negative affect (NA), positive affect (PA), and perceptions of performance. Students demonstrated a pattern of worse affect when exams approached and an improvement of affect in the days that followed exams. Specifically, they reported higher daily NA on the two days before exam days compared to days with no recent or upcoming exams. Further, students reported lower daily NA post-exams compared to before exams. Additionally, we found lower self-reported daily PA on the two days before exams compared to days with no recent or upcoming exams, and higher daily PA post-exams compared to before exams. Notably, trait use of some interpersonal ER strategies interacted with exam period: students who reported higher use of these strategies demonstrated smaller differences in PA across the days before and after exams (e.g., smaller dip in PA before exams) compared to students who reported lower use of these strategies. We found some evidence of interpersonal ER serving a more limited role in NA during exam periods. Furthermore, most interpersonal ER strategies at baseline and emotional closeness before an exam predicted perceiving exam performance less negatively. The present findings suggest that prosocial interpersonal processes may help students better manage their subjective experiences during stressful midterm exam periods.

This study aims to improve children's creativity in learning dance through learning strategies while playing in Sa'adatul Khidmah Islamic Kindergarten in Jambi City. This study is a classroom action research. The design of this study refers to the Kemmis and Mc Taggart models, covering planning, implementation, observation, and reflection. The subjects of this study were children in group B, Islamic Kindergarten Sa'adatul Khidmah Kota Jambi, which amounted to 16 children, consisting of 8 boys and 8 girls. The collaborator of this research is the Sa'adatul Khidmah Islamic Kindergarten Dance Teacher in Jambi City. The data collection technique used is observation. The research instruments are observation sheets and diaries. The data analysis technique used is descriptive analysis both quantitative and qualitative. The results of the study show that children's creativity can be improved after being given action through play-learning strategies that are applied to dance learning. The results of the observation before the action showed that the average score of creativity obtained by the child was 57.9. There are two aspects of undeveloped creativity, namely originality and elaboration. In the first cycle the average score of creativity increased to 85.83 and all aspects of creativity have developed but there are two aspects whose development has not been optimal, namely flexibility and elaboration. In the second cycle the score of creativity increased to 96.66 on average and all aspects of creativity had grown optimally. The implication of this study is that the teacher will implement a learning strategy while playing to improve children's creativity in dance learning.

Establishing a causal link between social relationships and health using the Bradford Hill Guidelines.

BackgroundDespite a growing body of research from the United States and other industrialized countries on the inverse association between supportive social relationships in the school and youth risk behavior engagement, research on the measurement of supportive school social relationships in Central America is limited. We examined the psychometric properties of the Student Perceptions of School Cohesion (SPSC) scale, a 10-item scale that asks students to rate with a 5-point Likert-type response scale their perceptions of the school social environment, in a sample of public secondary school students (mean age = 15 years) living in central El Salvador.MethodsStudents (n = 982) completed a self-administered questionnaire that included the SPSC scale along with measures of youth health risk behaviors based on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Exploratory factor analysis was used to assess the factor structure of the scale, and two internal consistency estimates of reliability were computed. Construct validity was assessed by examining whether students who reported low school cohesion were significantly more likely to report physical fighting and illicit drug use.ResultsResults indicated that the SPSC scale has three latent factors, which explained 61.6% of the variance: supportive school relationships, student-school connectedness, and student-teacher connectedness. The full scale and three subscales had good internal consistency (rs = .87 and α = .84 for the full scale; rs and α between .71 and .75 for the three subscales). Significant associations were found between the full scale and all three subscales with physical fighting (p ≤ .001) and illicit drug use (p < .05).ConclusionFindings provide evidence of reliability and validity of the SPSC for the measurement of supportive school relationships in Latino adolescents living in El Salvador. These findings provide a foundation for further research on school cohesion and health risk behavior in Latino adolescents living in the U.S. and other Latin American countries.

Background: Few studies have examined longitudinal associations between close social relationships and weight gain. While supportive relationships may minimize weight gain by providing a healthy alternative to maladaptive stress coping behaviors, adverse relationships may act as chronic stressors and lead to weight gain, particularly via central fat accumulation. We assessed whether positive and negative social relationships were differentially associated with 10-year increases in overall and central adiposity. Methods: CARDIA participants (ages 33-45 in 2000) with complete covariate data were included (n=2,686). Individuals were asked 4 questions about positive social interactions and 4 questions about negative interactions. Participants were grouped into 3 categories based on positive and negative close relationships reported in 2000 and 2005: persistently high (highest tertile in both years); persistently low (lowest tertile in both years); and intermediate (all other combinations). Overall and central adiposity were estimated with measured BMI and waist circumference (WC), respectively. Separate logistic regression models were used to assess whether cumulative exposure to positive and negative relationships were associated with a &gt;10% (clinically meaningful) increase in BMI and WC between 2000 and 2010. Results: The prevalence of persistently high and persistently low positive relationships were similar (20.0% and 18.2%), but more participants reported persistently high negative relationships (25.7%) than persistently low negative relationships (14.7%). Approximately 28.2% and 27.9% of participants experienced a &gt;10% increase in their BMI and WC, respectively. Participants with persistently high positive relationships were 0.68 (95% CI: 0.52, 0.90) times less likely to increase their BMI by ≥10% over 10 years compared to those with persistently low positive relationships after adjusting for age, sex, race, field center, and marital status. Persistently high positive relationships were not significantly associated with a ≥10% increase in WC (OR: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.61, 1.08). Persistently high negative relationships were not associated with a &gt;10% increase in BMI (OR: 1.21; 95% CI: 0.91, 1.60). However, those with persistently high negative relationships were 1.40 (95% CI: 1.05, 1.86) times more likely to experience a ≥10% increase in WC compared to participants with persistently low negative relationships. These findings persisted after further adjustment for education, income, employment status, depressive symptoms, current smoking, physical activity, and 2000 BMI. Results did not differ by sex or race. Conclusions: Supportive social relationships were more strongly associated with lower levels of clinically meaningful overall weight gain, while adverse relationships were more strongly related to meaningful increases in central weight gain.

Among the diverse strategies that businesses use to maximize sales, the customer-salesperson relationship as an aspect of relationship marketing has been reported as one of the most critical (O'Malley and Tynan, 1998 O'Malley, L. and Tynan, C. 1998. "Concept, metaphor or reality?: The prognosis for consumer-organizational relationships". In New frontiers in relationship marketing theory and practice, Edited by: Sheth, J. and Menon, A. Atlanta, GA: Emory University. (June) [Google Scholar]). Although relationship marketing has been emphasized across various business settings, this strategy works particularly well in luxury markets for a number of reasons. For example, brands offering high involvement products (i.e., luxury brand products) focus on relationship marketing rather than those offering low involvement products (Martin, 1998). Previous researchers have recognized the role of various customers attributes in sales interactions (Walker et al., 1977 Walker, O.C., Churchill, G.A. Jr. and Ford, N.M. 1977. Motivation and performance in industrial selling: present knowledge and needed research. Journal of Marketing Research, 14(May): 156–68. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Weitz, 1981 Weitz, B.A. 1981. Effectiveness in sales interactions: a contingency framework. Journal of Marketing, 45(Winter): 85–103. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). One customer attribute that may play a role in moderating the association between the strength of customer-salesperson relationship and sales effectiveness is a customer's tendency to self-monitor (Snyder, 1974 Snyder, M. 1974. Self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(4): 526–537. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This is due to the fact that an individuals' self monitoring tendency has been recognized as an influential personal disposition that accounts for differences in customer behavior especially in social contexts (Weitz, 1981 Weitz, B.A. 1981. Effectiveness in sales interactions: a contingency framework. Journal of Marketing, 45(Winter): 85–103. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Self-monitoring refers to the tendency to monitor (i.e., observe and control) self-presentations and expressive behaviors (Snyder, 1974 Snyder, M. 1974. Self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(4): 526–537. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). High self-monitors are individuals who are highly sensitive to social cues in an interaction situation; thus, they modify their behavior because they desire to look proper or preferable to others in that situation. Low self-monitors are individuals who regard their personal value system and private realities as important; thus, they tend to keep their self-presentation consistent across situations. We investigated to what extent does the strength of type of customer-salesperson relationship (i.e., social, functional) influence sales effectiveness and whether individuals' self-monitoring moderated this relationship. This study contributes to theory concerning sales performance as it furthers understanding of how relationship type influences sales performance. It also provides practical information to luxury store sales managers by documenting the effectiveness of social versus functional relationship types. Furthermore, given that degree of self-monitoring has been reported to be easily recognized from observations of people (Snyder, 1974 Snyder, M. 1974. Self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(4): 526–537. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the research identifies the role of a visible customer attribute in a selling situation thus providing concrete ideas for salespersons concerning how to best serve their customers. Twenty two stores located in eight of the largest department stores in Seoul, Korea were identified. Sales managers in the luxury brand stores were asked to be data collectors for the sample, each sales manager were asked to secure 10 respondents. They received a $5 gift card per completed questionnaire for compensation. Once a customer was informed of the nature of the research and agreed to participate, they were given a questionnaire that included information on consent in a booklet. Participants were given a $5 gift card for compensation. A total of 220 questionnaires were distributed and 187 were returned. Questionnaires with excessive incomplete responses were eliminated resulting in a final sample of 167. The questionnaire consisted of existing measures of sales effectiveness (Gilly et al. (1998 Gilly, M.C., Graham, J.C., Wolfinbarger, M.F. and Yale, L.J. 1998. A dyadic study of interpersonal information search. Journal of Academy Marketing Science, 26(2): 83–100. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), satisfaction with purchase decisions Fitzsomons (2000 Fitzsimons, G.J. and Gavan, J. 2000. Consumer response to stockouts. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(2): 249–266. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), sales associate-customer relationship type (Coulter and Ligas, 2000 Coulter, R.A. and Ligas, M. 2000. The long good-bye: the dissolution of customer-service provider relationships. Psychology of Marketing, 17(8): 669–695. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and self-monitoring (Snyder, 1986 Snyder, M. 1986. On the nature of self-monitoring: matters of assessment, matters of validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51: 125–139. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Participants were female (95.2%). A large percentage were from 50 to 59 years of age (38.9%) followed by the category of older than 60 years of age (24%). The majority had more formal education than a college degree (89.8%). Participants shared that they had known their salesperson for an average of 3.4 years. Preliminary data analyses revealed Cronbach's alpha coefficient was .92 for perceived salesperson effect on purchase decision, .89 for satisfaction with purchase decision, and .72 for self-monitoring. Next we verified the assumptions of the regression model testing normality of residuals, independence of residuals (Durbin-Watson statistic), linearity, and constant variance of the residuals (homoscedasticity). All assumptions were satisfied. Some of the correlations of the measures indicated possible problems of multicollinearity. In order to minimize correlations between the independent variables and interaction terms, the independent variables were mean-centered prior to the computation of the interaction terms (Aiken and West, 1991 Aiken, L.S. and West, S.G. 1991. Multiple regression testing and interpreting interactions, Newbury Park, CA: Sage. [Google Scholar]). We checked variance inflation factor for each regression coefficient and results showed all factors were less than the threshold of 10. Multiple regression revealed that the strength of social relationship was positively related to perceived salesperson effect on purchase decision (β =.27, p<.001) and satisfaction with purchase decision (β=.28, p<.001). A functional relationship with a salesperson had no significant effect on purchase decision and satisfaction with purchase decision. Self-monitoring moderated the influence of a social relationship such that customers who were low self-monitors were more likely to indicate they were influenced by the salesperson for their purchase intentions if they perceived they had a strong social relationship with salesperson than a weak social relationship. However, when customers were high self-monitors, the perceived effect of a social relationship was reduced. Participants credited their salesperson with influencing their purchase decision as well as tended to be satisfied with their purchase decision when they thought they had a strong social relationship with a salesperson. These findings are consistent with those of Reynolds and Beatty (1999 Reynolds, K.E. and Beatty, S.E. 1999. Customer benefits and company consequences of customer-salesperson relationships in retailing. Journal of Marketing, 75(1): 11–32. [Google Scholar]) and Wagner et al. (2003 Wagner, J.A., Klein, N.M. and Keith, J.E. 2003. Buyer-seller relationships and selling effectiveness: the moderating influence of buyer expertise and product competitive position. Journal of Business Research, 56: 295–302. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The strength of functional relationships had no significant effect on either of our measures of salesperson effectiveness. The insignificant results could be due to the fact that customers with strong functional relationships with salespersons have no emotional connections or personal closeness with the salesperson. We extend prior work (Wagner et al., 2003 Wagner, J.A., Klein, N.M. and Keith, J.E. 2003. Buyer-seller relationships and selling effectiveness: the moderating influence of buyer expertise and product competitive position. Journal of Business Research, 56: 295–302. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Walker et al., 1977 Walker, O.C., Churchill, G.A. Jr. and Ford, N.M. 1977. Motivation and performance in industrial selling: present knowledge and needed research. Journal of Marketing Research, 14(May): 156–68. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) on investigating situational factors (i.e., customer attributes) influencing sales effectiveness. Our findings provide important implications for luxury retailers. Building a strong social relationship with customers is recognized as an important strategy in personnel selling. In order to maximize a relationship marketing strategy within limited resources, luxury retailers may want to inform their salespersons that it is more effective to try to build a strong social relationship with low self-monitors rather than high self-monitors since low self-monitors are predicted to have more tendency to be loyal to the salesperson due to their tendency to try to have shared attitudes and values with a personally close people (Snyder, Gangestad, and Simpson, 1983 Snyder, M., Gangestad, S. and Simpson, J. 1983. Choosing friends as activity partners: The role of self-monitoring. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45: 1061–1072. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) as well as to be receptive to the salesperson's influence on their purchase decision when they have a strong social relationship with the salesperson. In contrast, because high self-monitors tend to have lower levels of interpersonal commitment and less stable social bonds than low self-monitors (Gangestad and Snyder, 2000 Gangestad, S.W. and Snyder, M. 2000. Self-monitoring: Appraisal and reappraisal. Psychological Bulletin, 126: 530–555. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), it seems hard to obtain long-term loyalty from high self-monitors even though they may view themselves as having a strong social relationship with the salesperson.

It has been repeatedly shown that strong, affiliative social relationships (hereafter “social relationships”) are extremely important for human health and well-being. Increasingly there is evidence that non-human species also form social relationships that share important characteristics of human social relationships: specifically differentiation in strength, stability and equality, and that these relationships play an important role in non-human fitness and well being. However, there have been strong criticisms of this work by some, who claim the apparent similarities between human and non-human social relationships may be by-products of very different, simpler processes. In addition, not all aspects of the proposed, shared characteristics have been thoroughly compared with their human equivalent. Investigations of non-human social relationships are also generally hindered by a lack of consensus on how best to quantitatively assess non-human social relationships. The overall aim of this thesis was to establish the characteristics of social relationships among wild, female Assamese macaques and consider how closely they resemble the characteristics of strong social relationships among humans and other non-human species. Specifically I addressed the criticisms and gaps in our understanding of the characteristics of non-human social relationships. In addition, I evaluated and made use of new quantitative measures of social behaviour, provided by Social Network Analysis (SNA) and considered whether these measures are helpful in improving our assessment of non-human social relationships. Data for this thesis were collected from a single group of wild Assamese macaques living within Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary (16°5′–35′N, 101°20′–55′E), located in Chaiyaphum province, north-eastern Thailand. The sanctuary covers 1573km2 and is part of the regions contiguous ca. 6500 km2 Western Isaan Forest Complex. Data were collected over two one-year sampling periods (period 1: Oct. 2007 – Sep. 2008, period 2: May 2010 – Apr. 2011). During this time the group consisted of 49-53 individuals in total, 12 adult females in sampling period 1 and 15 adult females in sampling period 2. All adult females in the group were subject to regular focal observations, during which all social interactions were recorded using continuous sampling and general activity was recorded using instantaneous sampling. In total over 2100 hours of behavioural observations were collected. Analysis of this data revealed that female Assamese macaque social relationships do share some important characteristics of strong human social relationships. The social relationships were found to be strongly differentiated in strength, with females tending to only form a few stronger than average social relationships. Social relationships were also found toremain stable throughout the year, despite significant changes in the time females allocated to other behaviours, such as feeding and resting, associated with changes in the female breeding cycle. In addition, analysis also provided some initial evidence that these social relationships remain stable for several years. Females were also found to exchange services in an equitable manner, however unlike human social relationships, social relationships strength did not influence the content or time frame over which services were exchanged. SNA was found to provide useful measures for quantifying the structure of female Assamese macaques social relationships and to provide other potentially useful measures for future studies of non-human social relationships. These results provide a valuable contribution to our understanding of both non-human and human social relationships. They provide us with a fuller picture of the social lives of Assamese macaques in general, showing that strong, social relationships are an important feature of female social lives in this species, while dominance rank plays a relatively limited role in female behaviour. They also provide further support for the “valuable” relationship approach to understanding non-human social relationships, as opposed to the biological market approach suggested by some. Lastly, by providing further evidence that social relationships among nonhuman species share important characteristics with strong human social relationships these results also have implications for our understanding of the evolutionary origins of human social relationships, particularly the original functional benefits these relationships evolved to provide. In the future, we can further deepen our understanding of non-human social relationships by continuing to investigate which characteristics these relationships share with strong human social relationships. At the same time, we should also attempt to identify and investigate characteristics of social relationships which may be more meaningful specifically for non-human species. Lastly, we should begin to turn our attention to the many weak and dynamic social relationships that exist in groups of non-human species and the potential benefits that they may provide.

BackgroundWeakened white matter (WM) integrity is highly associated with dementia risk. Still, not everyone with WM changes develops dementia, suggesting the important role modifiable lifestyle factors may have in reducing dementia risk. We investigated how social relationships in mid‐life may modify the association between WM integrity and incident dementia risk within race and sex subgroups.MethodIn 1,679 Atherosclerosis Risk in Community (ARIC) study participants who were dementia‐free in mid‐life, psychosocial health was assessed via self‐reported questionnaires and participants were classified as having strong or poor social relationships in mid‐life (visit 2: 1990‐1992). Through diffusion tensor imaging, WM integrity was evaluated with 3T brain MRI (visit 5: 2011 – 2013); fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) were estimated. Incident dementia cases were identified from visit 5 through December 31, 2019, with ongoing surveillance. Relative contributions of social relationships and WM integrity to incident dementia were evaluated in Cox‐proportional hazard regression models with race and race‐sex as interaction terms, and in stratified models (White Females, Black Females, White Males, Black Males).ResultSignificant three‐way interactions were observed between race, WM integrity, and mid‐life social relationships (p‐interaction&lt;0.01). In Black participants with strong mid‐life social relationships, higher MD (hazard ratio (HR): 0.93, 95% CI: 0.63 – 1.38) and lower FA (HR: 1.25, 95% CI: 0.84 – 1.86) were not associated with the risk of dementia, although in Black participants with poor social relationships, higher MD remained a significant risk factor for dementia. However, across all White participants, higher MD and lower FA were associated with the risk of dementia, regardless of mid‐life social relationships (Table 1; Figure 1). Analysis of three‐way interactions between race‐sex, WM integrity, and mid‐life social relationships suggested that effect modification by mid‐life social relationships was most evident in Black Females, respective to other groups (Table 2; Figure 1).ConclusionThe contribution of WM integrity to dementia risk may be lower in Black participants with strong social relationships in mid‐life, particularly in Black Females. Further understanding of how contextual social factors may influence brain health in diverse populations should be examined in future studies and intervention efforts.

BackgroundWeakened white matter (WM) integrity is highly associated with dementia risk. Still, not everyone with WM changes develops dementia, suggesting the important role modifiable lifestyle factors may have in reducing dementia risk. We investigated how social relationships in mid‐life may modify the association between WM integrity and incident dementia risk within race and sex subgroups.MethodIn 1,679 Atherosclerosis Risk in Community (ARIC) study participants who were dementia‐free in mid‐life, psychosocial health was assessed via self‐reported questionnaires and participants were classified as having strong or poor social relationships in mid‐life (visit 2: 1990‐1992). Through diffusion tensor imaging, WM integrity was evaluated with 3T brain MRI (visit 5: 2011 – 2013); fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) were estimated. Incident dementia cases were identified from visit 5 through December 31, 2019, with ongoing surveillance. Relative contributions of social relationships and WM integrity to incident dementia were evaluated in Cox‐proportional hazard regression models with race and race‐sex as interaction terms, and in stratified models (White Females, Black Females, White Males, Black Males).ResultSignificant three‐way interactions were observed between race, WM integrity, and mid‐life social relationships (p‐interaction&lt;0.01). In Black participants with strong mid‐life social relationships, higher MD (hazard ratio (HR): 0.93, 95% CI: 0.63 – 1.38) and lower FA (HR: 1.25, 95% CI: 0.84 – 1.86) were not associated with the risk of dementia, although in Black participants with poor social relationships, higher MD remained a significant risk factor for dementia. However, across all White participants, higher MD and lower FA were associated with the risk of dementia, regardless of mid‐life social relationships (Table 1; Figure 1). Analysis of three‐way interactions between race‐sex, WM integrity, and mid‐life social relationships suggested that effect modification by mid‐life social relationships was most evident in Black Females, respective to other groups (Table 2; Figure 1).ConclusionThe contribution of WM integrity to dementia risk may be lower in Black participants with strong social relationships in mid‐life, particularly in Black Females. Further understanding of how contextual social factors may influence brain health in diverse populations should be examined in future studies and intervention efforts.