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Abstract
Background There is growing research into the effects of psychological and social factors such as loneliness and isolation on cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, it is unclear whether individuals with particular clusters of CVD risk factors are more strongly affected by loneliness and isolation. This study aimed to identify latent clustering of modifiable risk factors among adults aged 50+ and explore the relationship between loneliness, social isolation and risk factor patterns.
Methods Data from 8218 adults of English Longitudinal Study of Ageing were used in latent class analyses to identify latent classes of cardiovascular risk factors and predictors of class membership.
Results There were four latent classes: low-risk (30.2%), high-risk (15.0%), clinical-risk (42.6%) and lifestyle-risk (12.2%) classes. Loneliness was associated with a greater risk of being in the high-risk class (relative risk ratio (RRR) 2.40, 95% CI 2.40 to 1.96) and lifestyle-risk class (RRR 1.36, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.67) and a lower risk of being in the clinical-risk class (RRR 0.84, 95% CI 0.72 to 0.98) relative to the low-risk class. Social disengagement, living alone and low social contact were also differentially associated with latent class memberships.
Conclusion These findings supplement our existing knowledge of modifiable risk factors for CVD by showing how risk factors cluster together and how the risk patterns are related to social factors, offering important implications for clinical practice and preventive interventions.
- ageing
- cardiovascular disease
- cohort studies
- health behaviour
- social factors in
Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. Data from ELSA are available from the UK Data Service (https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/). The access to the linked data with Hospital Episode Statistics can be obtained from NatCen.
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Data availability statement
Data are available in a public, open access repository. Data from ELSA are available from the UK Data Service (https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/). The access to the linked data with Hospital Episode Statistics can be obtained from NatCen.
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Footnotes
Correction notice This article has been corrected since it first published. The provenance and peer review statement has been included.
Contributors All authors conceived and designed the study. FB analysed the data and FB and DF wrote the first draft. All authors provided critical revisions. All authors read and approved the submitted manuscript.
Funding The funding for English Longitudinal Study of Aging is provided by the National Institute on Aging [R01AG017644] and a consortium of UK government departments coordinated by the Economic and Social Research Council. DF was supported by the Wellcome Trust [205407/Z/16/Z]. This research was supported through a grant from the Leverhulme Trust [PLP-2018-007].
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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