Volunteering by older adults and risk of mortality: A meta-analysis.

Abstract

Organizational volunteering has been touted as an effective strategy for older adults to help themselves while helping others. Extending previous reviews, we carried out a meta-analysis of the relation between organizational volunteering by late middle-aged and older adults (minimum age = 55 years old) and risk of mortality. We focused on unadjusted effect sizes (i.e., bivariate relations), adjusted effect sizes (i.e., controlling for other variables such as health), and interaction effect sizes (e.g., the joint effect of volunteering and religiosity). For unadjusted effect sizes, on average, volunteering reduced mortality risk by 47 percent with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 38% to 55%. For adjusted effect sizes, on average, volunteering reduced mortality risk by 24 percent with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 16% to 31%. For interaction effect sizes, we found preliminary support that as public religiosity increases, the inverse relation between volunteering and mortality risk becomes stronger. The discussion identified several unresolved issues and directions for future research.Key words: volunteering, mortality, moderation Word count: 11,472 Volunteering and Mortality 3Volunteering by Older Adults and Risk of Mortality: A Meta-Analysis Using insights generated from evolutionary theory, Brown and her colleagues (Brown & Brown, 2006;Brown, Nesse, Vinokur, & Smith, 2003) advanced the hypothesis that helping behavior, whatever its effect on the recipient, promotes the psychological wellbeing and health of the helper. Providing assistance to another improves relationship satisfaction and enhances stress regulation . Brown and her colleagues have shown that helping behavior among older adults is associated with accelerated recovery from depressive symptoms that accompany spousal loss (Brown, Brown, House, & Smith, 2008) and reduced mortality risk (Brown et al., 2003) even among caregivers (Brown, Smith, et al., 2009). An independent research team, using a sample of over a thousand older adults from New York City, reported similar findings for morbidity (Brown, Consedine, & Magai, 2005).Prosocial behaviors refer to intentional efforts to provide assistance to another individual or communities. Planned prosocial activities include caregiving, providing support to others, contributing to other church-goers, and volunteering. Organizational or formal volunteering is an unpaid, voluntary activity that involves ". . . taking actions within an institutional framework that potentially provides some service to one or more other people or to the community at large" (Piliavin & Siegl, 2007, p. 454). In the current meta-analysis, we examine the relation between organizational volunteering and risk of mortality among adults 55 years old and older.We chose to focus exclusively on organizational volunteering because, in contrast to helping familiar others and engaging in social activities with familiar others in informal social contexts, organizational volunteering entails helping unfamiliar others i...

Caregiving, volunteering or both? Comparing effects on health and mortality using census-based records from almost 250,000 people aged 65 and over

“…In fully adjusted models, each had an equivalent association with lowered mortality risk, with estimated effects similar to findings in existing meta-analyses of both volunteering [3,6] and caregiving [17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

“…This relationship has been subject to recent reviews[1-6] and one, a meta-analysis of fourteen studies [3], showed that organisational or formal volunteering reduced the mortality of people aged fifty-five or more by 24% (16-31%). Anderson et al [4], in a narrative review qualified this and suggested that while beneficial effects were evident at moderate levels, they may be less apparent at high-intensity levels.…”

Physiological Correlates of Volunteering

“…Indeed, a metaanalysis of 14 longitudinal studies conducted from 1986 to 2012 found that volunteering at one time point was associated with a 47% reduction in mortality risk (24% for adjusted models) a few years later (Okun et al 2013). This meta-analysis also found that the mortality risk benefits associated with volunteering are especially strong for people who are more religious.…”

Religious and Secular Coping Strategies and Mortality Risk among Older Adults

“…Indeed, Thoits & Hewitt (2001) found that individuals who had better physical and mental health were not only more likely to engage in volunteer work, but we expedite [d] Volunteering has also been shown to be positively associated with increased personal well-being, independent of other religious or secular community participation. A recent meta-analysis, for instance, found that even when controlling for various social and demographic covariates, volunteers experienced a twenty-five percent reduction in mortality risk on average compared to non-volunteers (Okun et al, 2013).…”

“…In recent years, a number of scholars have found that volunteering can positively impact health and mortality risk (see Okun, WanHeung Yeung, & Brown, 2013 for a meta-analysis). For example, volunteering among older adults has been shown to be associated with a significant reduction in depressive symptoms (Banerjee, Perry, Tran, & Arafat, 2010).…”