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Journal of the American Medical... Jan 2023To report the overall prevalence of social frailty among older people and provide information for policymakers and authorities to use in developing policies and social... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
OBJECTIVE
To report the overall prevalence of social frailty among older people and provide information for policymakers and authorities to use in developing policies and social care.
DESIGN
A systematic review and meta-analysis.
SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS
We searched 4 databases (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) to find articles from inception to July 30, 2022. We included cross-sectional and cohort studies that provided the prevalence of social frailty among adults aged 60 years or older, in any setting.
METHODS
Three researchers independently reviewed the literature and retrieved the data. A risk of bias tool was used to assess each study's quality. A random-effect meta-analysis was performed to pool the data, followed by subgroup analysis, sensitivity analysis, and meta-regression.
RESULTS
From 761 records, we extracted 43 studies with 83,907 participants for meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of social frailty in hospital settings was 47.3% (95% CI: 32.2%-62.4%); among studies in community settings, the pooled prevalence was 18.8% (95% CI: 14.9%-22.7%; P < .001). The prevalence of social frailty was higher when assessed using the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (32.3%; 95% CI: 23.1%-41.5%) than the Makizako Social Frailty Index (27.7%; 95% CI: 21.6%-33.8%) or Social Frailty Screening Index (13.4%; 95% CI: 8.4%-18.4%). Based on limited community studies in individual countries using various instruments, social frailty was lowest in China (4.9%; 95% CI: 4.2%-5.7%), followed by Spain (11.6%; 95% CI: 9.9%-13.3%), Japan (16.2%; 95% CI: 12.2%-20.3%), Korea (26.6%; 95% CI: 7.1%-46.1%), European urban centers (29.2%; 95% CI: 27.9%-30.5%), and the Netherlands (27.2%; 95% CI: 16.9%-37.5%). No other subgroup analyses showed any statistically significant prevalence difference between groups.
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
The prevalence of social frailty among older adults is high. Settings, country, and method for assessing social frailty affected the prevalence. More valid comparisons will await consensus on measurement tools and more research on geographically representative populations. Nevertheless, these results suggest that public health professionals and policymakers should seriously consider social frailty in research and program planning involving older adults.
Topics: Humans; Aged; Frailty; Prevalence; Cross-Sectional Studies; Social Group; Hospitals; Frail Elderly
PubMed: 36402197
DOI: 10.1016/j.jamda.2022.10.007 -
Social Studies of Science Aug 2022This article maps the rise and fall of the idea of a (social) group across medicine in the context of contemporary analyses in psychology and sociology. This history...
This article maps the rise and fall of the idea of a (social) group across medicine in the context of contemporary analyses in psychology and sociology. This history shows the early 20th century emergence and growth of group medicine, group therapy and group comparisons. In recent decades, however, the idea that groups constituted the basic units of society has been replaced with the emergence of populations and systems that offer a more virtual and abstract context for individual relationships. This has implications for explanation itself as the demise of groups has changed the epistemological ground-rules for understanding identity formation and social change.
Topics: History, 20th Century; Knowledge; Social Change; Sociology
PubMed: 35635027
DOI: 10.1177/03063127221096389 -
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 2021Parasites and their social hosts form many different relationships. But what kind of selection regimes are important? A look at the parameters that determine fitness of... (Review)
Review
Parasites and their social hosts form many different relationships. But what kind of selection regimes are important? A look at the parameters that determine fitness of the two parties suggests that social hosts differ from solitary ones primarily in the structure of transmission pathways. Because transmission is, both, the physical encounter of a new host and infecting it, several different elements determine parasite transmission success. These include spatial distance, genetic distance, or the temporal and ecological niche overlaps. Combing these elements into a 'generalized transmission distance' that determines parasite fitness aids in the identification of the critical steps. For example, short-distance transmission to genetically similar hosts within the social group is the most frequent process under sociality. Therefore, spatio-genetical distances are the main driver of parasite fitness. Vice versa, the generalized distance identifies the critical host defences. In this case, host defences should be primarily selected to defend against the within-group spread of an infection, especially among closely related group members.
PubMed: 34720348
DOI: 10.1007/s00265-021-03092-3 -
Animals : An Open Access Journal From... Mar 2023In captivity, intact male horses, due to their sexual drive, are usually socially isolated from other horses. This lifestyle strongly contrasts with that experienced by... (Review)
Review
In captivity, intact male horses, due to their sexual drive, are usually socially isolated from other horses. This lifestyle strongly contrasts with that experienced by horses living in free-roaming, feral, or semi-feral conditions, where adult stallions have several roles in their social group, with successful reproduction being their primary drive. Reproductive skew in wild populations is high; many stallions will fail to reproduce at all, while others achieve high levels of reproductive success, siring a large number of foals. Successful stallions are those with particular characteristics and abilities that facilitate harem formation and tenure, allowing them to successfully take over a harem or establish a new one, protect mares from rival stallions, employ appropriate social behaviour to maintain group cohesion, and avoid kin-mating, for example through kin recognition mechanisms. Whilst the life of free-living stallions is far from stress-free, they retain ancestral adaptations to selection pressures (such as predation and competition) exhibited by their natural environment over thousands of years. Here, we discuss the challenges faced by free-living horse stallions, the roles they play in social groups, and their resulting social needs. By understanding these pressures and how stallions react to them, we highlighted the importance of the social environment for the stallion. It is hoped that a better understanding of wild stallions' lives will lead to their needs being more clearly met in captivity, reducing stereotypical behaviour and improving welfare.
PubMed: 37048406
DOI: 10.3390/ani13071151 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2023Studies on radicalization tend to focus on the dynamics of extremist groups and how they exploit grievances of vulnerable individuals. It is imperative, however, to also...
Studies on radicalization tend to focus on the dynamics of extremist groups and how they exploit grievances of vulnerable individuals. It is imperative, however, to also understand the societal factors that lead to such vulnerabilities and grievances. Our social environment plays a key role in how we view the world and shape our beliefs. By understanding the social dynamics, we can gain insight into the motivations that drive people to extremism. Throughout this paper, we examine the societal factors and processes such as discriminative institutional structures and social norms/practices that can make an individual vulnerable and serve as a driving force for them to join a radical group. To do that, we use the process-oriented psychology of Arnold Mindell and the phenomenology of whiteness of Sara Ahmed as our theoretical framework. These frameworks help us map out the societal dynamics causing individuals to carve social niches out of their current social group and into an extremist group. We use interviews with ex-militants of the radical group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, to show how certain societal dynamics, such as social injustice, misuse of power, marginalization and discrimination, served as key factors that led these individuals to identify and sympathize with radical ideology. The aim of this paper is to emphasize that, to develop effective preventative measures against recruitment into extremist groups, it is imperative to have a profound understanding of the social dynamics that make an individual susceptible to radicalization in the first place.
PubMed: 37287791
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1197282 -
Integrative Organismal Biology (Oxford,... 2021Group living is widespread among animal species and yields both costs and benefits. Presence of conspecifics can restrict or enhance the expression of individual...
Group living is widespread among animal species and yields both costs and benefits. Presence of conspecifics can restrict or enhance the expression of individual behavior, and the recent social environment is thought to affect behavioral responses in later contexts, even when individuals are alone. However, little is known about how social group size influences the expression of individual physiological traits, including metabolic rates. There is some evidence that shoaling can reduce fish metabolic rates but this variable may be affected by habitat conditions such as shelter availability via density-dependent processes. We investigated how social group size and shelter availability influence Eurasian minnow () metabolic rates estimated by respirometry. Respirometry trials were conducted on fish in isolation before and after they were housed for 3 weeks in a social treatment consisting in a specific group size ( = 4 or 8) and shelter availability (presence or absence of plant shelter in the experimental tank). Plant shelter was placed over respirometers for half of the duration of the respirometry trials, allowing estimation of minimum daytime and nighttime metabolic rates in both conditions (in the presence or absence of plant shelter). Standard metabolic rate (SMR), maximum metabolic rate (MMR), and aerobic scope were also estimated over the entire trial. Minimum daytime and nighttime metabolic rates estimated while in presence of plant shelter were lower than when estimated in absence of plant shelter, both before and after individuals were housed in their social treatment. After the social treatment, SMRs were higher for fish that were held in groups of 4 as compared with those of fish held in groups of 8, while MMR showed no difference. Plant shelter availability during the social treatments did not influence SMR or MMR. Our results suggest that social group size may directly influence energy demands of individuals, highlighting the importance of understanding the role of group size on variations in physiological traits associated with energy expenditure.
PubMed: 34859193
DOI: 10.1093/iob/obab032 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Feb 2022Across species, animals organize into social dominance hierarchies that serve to decrease aggression and facilitate survival of the group. Neuroscientists have adopted... (Review)
Review
Across species, animals organize into social dominance hierarchies that serve to decrease aggression and facilitate survival of the group. Neuroscientists have adopted several model organisms to study dominance hierarchies in the laboratory setting, including fish, reptiles, rodents and primates. We review recent literature across species that sheds light onto how the brain represents social rank to guide socially appropriate behaviour within a dominance hierarchy. First, we discuss how the brain responds to social status signals. Then, we discuss social approach and avoidance learning mechanisms that we propose could drive rank-appropriate behaviour. Lastly, we discuss how the brain represents memories of individuals (social memory) and how this may support the maintenance of unique individual relationships within a social group. This article is part of the theme issue 'The centennial of the pecking order: current state and future prospects for the study of dominance hierarchies'.
Topics: Aggression; Animals; Hierarchy, Social; Social Dominance
PubMed: 35000438
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0444 -
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2022A key emergent property of group social dynamic is synchrony-the coordination of actions, emotions, or physiological processes between group members. Despite this fact...
A key emergent property of group social dynamic is synchrony-the coordination of actions, emotions, or physiological processes between group members. Despite this fact and the inherent nested structure of groups, little research has assessed physiological synchronization between group members from a multi-level perspective, thus limiting a full understanding of the dynamics between members. To address this gap of knowledge we re-analyzed a large dataset ( = 261) comprising physiological and psychological data that were collected in two laboratory studies that involved two different social group tasks. In both studies, following the group task, members reported their experience of group cohesion via questionnaires. We utilized a non-linear analysis method-multidimensional recurrence quantification analysis that allowed us to represent physiological synchronization in cardiological interbeat intervals between group members at the individual-level and at the group-level. We found that across studies and their conditions, the change in physiological synchrony from baseline to group interaction predicted a psychological sense of group cohesion. This result was evident both at the individual and the group levels and was not modified by the context of the interaction. The individual- and group-level effects were highly correlated. These results indicate that the relationship between synchrony and cohesion is a multilayered construct. We re-affirm the role of physiological synchrony for cohesion in groups. Future studies are needed to crystallize our understanding of the differences and similarities between synchrony at the individual-level and synchrony at the group level to illuminate under which conditions one of these levels has primacy, or how they interact.
PubMed: 35903785
DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.903407 -
United European Gastroenterology Journal Apr 2018There are substantial disparities in the incidence and prognosis of oesophageal cancer across social population groups, including sex, race/ethnicity, geographical... (Review)
Review
There are substantial disparities in the incidence and prognosis of oesophageal cancer across social population groups, including sex, race/ethnicity, geographical location and socio-economic status. Both squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus are more common in men than in women, but the male predominance in adenocarcinoma is stronger and less well understood. The varying incidence and prognosis of oesophageal cancer across racial/ethnic groups show distinct patterns by histological type. Individuals residing in rural areas have a higher incidence and worse prognosis than those in urban areas in developing regions. Lower socio-economic status is associated with an increased incidence and reduced survival in oesophageal cancer. Sustained research identifying novel preventive and therapeutic strategies are needed to reduce the risk of oesophageal cancer and improve the prognosis in all social groups.
PubMed: 29774147
DOI: 10.1177/2050640617751254 -
Theory in Biosciences = Theorie in Den... Sep 2023Adaptive mimicry in animals is a well-known phenomenon. Here, we propose that a similarly adaptive strategy in humans is using kin terms for people who are not closely...
Adaptive mimicry in animals is a well-known phenomenon. Here, we propose that a similarly adaptive strategy in humans is using kin terms for people who are not closely genetically related. Irrespective of the initiator attributing a kin term to a non-kin, we call this kin term mimicry (KTM). The emergence of human sociality and language allowed not only easy kin recognition, but also led to strong positive emotions related to such kin names as "mother," "father," "brother," "sister," "aunt" or "uncle." Although the phenomenon of using kin terms of genetically unrelated people is well known in the social sciences, here we discuss it in the light of evolution. We notice this is an evolutionary adaptive cooperation strategy, which allows us to predict in which ecological or social circumstances it will be more prevalent. We postulate specific testable factors that affect the prevalence of kin mimicry. We also discuss who is more likely to be an initiator of calling non-kin a fictive kin, and who benefits from such behavior. The KTM hypothesis postulates that an individual or social group initiating or bestowing kin terms usually receives more benefits (economic and/or psychological support) from such mimicry.
Topics: Male; Animals; Humans; Social Behavior; Family
PubMed: 37277580
DOI: 10.1007/s12064-023-00393-1