Associations for Sense of Purpose with Smoking and Health Outcomes Among Adults with Diabetes.

BACKGROUND: Health complications from diabetes place major strain on individuals, financially and emotionally. The onset and severity of these complications are largely driven by patients' behaviors, making psychosocial factors that influence behaviors key targets for interventions. One promising factor is sense of purpose or the degree to which a person believes their life has direction. METHOD: The current study investigated whether sense of purpose predicts self-rated health, cardiovascular disease, and smoking status among adults with diabetes concurrently and prospectively. Moreover, it tested whether these associations held across multiple samples and cultures. Coordinated analysis using 12 datasets cross-sectionally and eight longitudinally (total N = 7277) estimated the degree to which sense of purpose is associated with subjective health, smoking status, and cardiovascular disease among adults with diabetes. Coordinated analysis allows for greater generalizability of results across cultures, time periods, and measurement instruments. Datasets were included if they concurrently included a measure of sense of purpose and diabetes status and at least one health measure: self-rated health, current smoking status, or heart condition status. RESULTS: Sense of purpose was associated with higher self-rated health, smoking status, and cardiovascular disease cross-sectionally and self-rated health prospectively. Purpose was unassociated with changes in health over time. CONCLUSION: These results highlight the relationship of a key individual difference, sense of purpose, to the behaviors and outcomes of adults with diabetes. While more research is needed to determine the boundaries of this relationship, it seems sense of purpose may be considered in the future as a potential target for intervention.

Is Healthy Neuroticism Associated with Health Behaviors? A Coordinated Integrative Data Analysis.

Current literature suggests that neuroticism is positively associated with maladaptive life choices, likelihood of disease, and mortality. However, recent research has identified circumstances under which neuroticism is associated with positive outcomes. The current project examined whether "healthy neuroticism", defined as the interaction of neuroticism and conscientiousness, was associated with the following health behaviors: smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity. Using a pre-registered multi-study coordinated integrative data analysis (IDA) approach, we investigated whether "healthy neuroticism" predicted the odds of engaging in each of the aforementioned activities. Each study estimated identical models, using the same covariates and data transformations, enabling optimal comparability of results. These results were then meta-analyzed in order to estimate an average (N-weighted) effect and to ascertain the extent of heterogeneity in the effects. Overall, these results suggest that neuroticism alone was not related to health behaviors, while individuals higher in conscientiousness were less likely to be smokers or drinkers, and more likely to engage in physical activity. In terms of the healthy neuroticism interaction of neuroticism and conscientiousness, significant interactions for smoking and physical activity suggest that the association between neuroticism and health behaviors was smaller among those high in conscientiousness. These findings lend credence to the idea that healthy neuroticism may be linked to certain health behaviors and that these effects are generalizable across several heterogeneous samples.

Personality traits predict dietary habits in middle-to-older adults.

Personality traits are consistently associated with health behaviors, but little research has examined the role of personality on eating habits among middle-to-older adults. The current study (n = 665) examined the associations between traits and dietary habits and whether healthy eating predicted health at age 60, with the Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort. Eating healthy foods was associated with higher agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness, and predicted better self-rated health and lower BMI. Eating unhealthy foods was associated with lower agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness, and predicted lower self-rated health. Results were not moderated by SES.

Connecting social environment variables to the onset of major specific health outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: The present research examined the effects of the social environment on the onset of specific health ailments. DESIGN: Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we examined participants' responses to social environment questions in 2006 as predictors of onset of different health conditions over the next four years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Healthy participants (n = 7514) reported on their number of social partners, interaction frequency, positive social support and negative social support with respect to both their family and friends. These variables were used to predict onset of seven conditions in 2010: high blood pressure, heart condition, lung disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and arthritis. RESULTS: Logistic regressions indicated that the social environment provided some predictive value for onset of most health outcomes, with more positive and less negative social support appearing to buffer against onset. Social environmental variables related to friendships appeared to play a greater role than the family indicators. However, no variable proved universally adaptive, and social indicators had little value in predicting onset of chronic conditions. CONCLUSION: The current findings point to the potential for the social environment to influence later health, while demonstrating the nuanced role that our social lives play with respect to health.