@article {12996, title = {Age and Cohort Trends in Formal Volunteering and Informal Helping in Later Life: Evidence From the Health and Retirement Study.}, journal = {Demography}, volume = {60}, year = {2023}, pages = {99-122}, abstract = {

Formal volunteering holds great importance for the recipients of volunteer services, individuals who volunteer, and the wider society. However, how much recent birth cohorts volunteer in middle and late adulthood compared with earlier birth cohorts is not well understood. Even less well-known are the age and cohort trends in informal helping provided to friends and neighbors in later adulthood. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, we estimated age and cohort trends in formal volunteering and informal helping from 1998 to 2018 for a wide range of birth cohorts born between 1909 and 1958. We used multivariate, multilevel models based on Bayesian generalized modeling methods to estimate the probabilities of volunteering and informal helping simultaneously in a single model. Despite having advantages in human and health capital, recent birth cohorts showed volunteering levels in late adulthood that are similar to those of their predecessors. Moreover, more recent birth cohorts were consistently less engaged in informal helping than earlier birth cohorts throughout the observation period. More research is needed to illuminate the sociocultural drivers of changes in helping behaviors and overall prosocial and civic engagement.

}, keywords = {Bayes Theorem, Retirement, Volunteers}, issn = {1533-7790}, doi = {10.1215/00703370-10395916}, author = {Han, Sae Hwang and Shih, Yao-Chi and Burr, Jeffrey A and Peng, Changmin} } @article {9756, title = {Are Spouses{\textquoteright} Sleep Problems a Mechanism Through Which Health is Compromised? Evidence Regarding Insomnia and Heart Disease.}, journal = {Annals of Behavioral Medicine}, volume = {53}, year = {2019}, pages = {345-357}, abstract = {

Background: Symptoms of insomnia have been widely identified as risk factors for health, including heart disease. Despite the expansive and growing literature on health concordance among coupled individuals, few studies have examined insomnia as a shared risk factor for heart disease among middle-aged and older couples.

Purpose: This study examined the association between insomnia and incident heart disease among couples. A dyadic modeling approach was employed to investigate the relationships between one{\textquoteright}s own insomnia and partners{\textquoteright} insomnia for the risk of incident heart disease for each partner.

Methods: Data from the 2010, 2012, and 2014 Health and Retirement Study were utilized in a prospective research design (N = 3,221 couples). Actor-partner interdependence models were employed to estimate actor and partner effects of insomnia symptoms for incident heart disease over the 4 year observation period.

Results: Insomnia symptoms measured at baseline were related to an increased risk for heart disease for husbands, whereas for wives the association was attenuated after other health measures were controlled. Wives{\textquoteright} insomnia was related to an increased risk of incident heart disease for husbands but husbands{\textquoteright} insomnia was not related to wives{\textquoteright} risk of heart disease.

Conclusions: This study showed how subjective insomnia symptoms among middle-aged and older adults in intimate partnerships are associated with their heart disease risk. Further research is needed to verify the results with objective measures of sleep problems and heart disease.

}, keywords = {Depressive symptoms, Heart disease, Marriage, Sleep}, issn = {1532-4796}, doi = {10.1093/abm/kay048}, author = {Shih, Yao-Chi and Sae Hwang Han and Jeffrey A Burr} }