California allows apportionment of disability based upon causation. The potential for apportionment using this landmark change in the law has yet to be fully implemented in claim administration. Now a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may lead the way to a new apportionment concept.
Two decades of research indicate causal associations between social relationships and mortality, but important questions remain as to how social relationships affect health, when effects emerge, and how long they last. Drawing on data from four nationally representative longitudinal samples of the US population, researchers from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and others implemented an innovative life course design to assess the prospective association of both structural and functional dimensions of social relationships (social integration, social support, and social strain) with objectively measured biomarkers of physical health (C-reactive protein, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, waist circumference, and body mass index) within each life stage, including adolescence and young, middle, and late adulthood, and compare such associations across life stages.
The researchers found that a higher degree of social integration was associated with lower risk of physiological dysregulation in a dose – response manner in both early and later life. Conversely, lack of social connections was associated with vastly elevated risk in specific life stages.
For example, social isolation increased the risk of inflammation by the same magnitude as physical inactivity in adolescence, and the effect of social isolation on hypertension exceeded that of clinical risk factors such as diabetes in old age.
Analyses of multiple dimensions of social relationships within multiple samples across the life course produced consistent and robust associations with health. Physiological impacts of structural and functional dimensions of social relationships emerge uniquely in adolescence and midlife and persist into old age.
Thus, according to the researchers “Our study strengthened support for causal linkages between social relationships and physical functioning.”