Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This study reviewed surveys and used global models to measure how the COVID-19 pandemic changed rates of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders in 2020. It found that places with higher COVID-19 infection rates and bigger drops in movement had larger increases in these disorders. The authors estimate about 53.2…
This study followed 1,604 U.S. adults older than 60 for six years. It found that people who said they felt lonely (43% of the group) were more likely to have worse day-to-day function and were more likely to die. After the researchers adjusted for age, wealth, living situation, depression, and…
Social isolation and discrimination are linked with worse physical and mental health, more illness and higher death rates, and a lower quality of life. This review combines animal and human research and clinical studies. Animal studies show that social separation, especially early in life, activates the body's stress‑hormone system (the…
This study surveyed 426 Filipino adults online during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic to see if perceived stress helps explain links between social support and mental health. Using standard questionnaires, the researchers found that lower perceived stress was linked to more positive feelings and less anxiety and depression when…
Researchers followed 3,939 British civil servants from midlife into retirement (about 21 years) to see if problems in midlife predicted depressive symptoms after retirement. They measured midlife socioeconomic problems (job grade, satisfaction with standard of living) and psychosocial problems (job strain, number of close relationships), and later assessed depressive symptoms…
Although late-life depression (LLD) is a serious health problem and more common than dementia in people over 60, it is underdiagnosed and undertreated. The cognitive-emotional etiology of LLD is particularly poorly understood. This is in contrast to the now extensive literature from psychology and cognitive neuroscience on the characteristics of…
This non-randomized study tested whether playing recreational games twice a week for two months affected well-being in 80 nursing home residents aged 65 or older (40 played games and 40 continued usual activities). The people who played games showed bigger increases in happiness and life satisfaction, and bigger decreases in…
This study used network analysis to examine many parts of social life—friend and spouse ties, contact frequency, social engagement, support and strain, and relationship quality—in 502 South Korean adults aged 40–69 (mean 54.4; 49.4% male). Loneliness was most strongly connected to friend network size and the quality of friendships and…
