Jason Newsom, associate professor of community health at Portland State, recently co-authored a scientific study whose results strongly suggest that volunteering in one’s community can increase the longevity of older adults living with functional limitations.
According to Newsom, a person with functional limitations—such as those who are unable to buy groceries or drive a car—often feels a loss of control over his or her health. These limitations often impair one’s self-perception, which can lead to decreased longevity. The study finds, however, that the act of volunteering may counteract many of the negative effects of functional limitations.
The study is the brainchild of Morris Okun, professor of psychology at Arizona State University, who enlisted Newsom and Karen Rooks, professor of social ecology at the University of California at Irvine, to analyze the data.
According to Okun, over 800 people age 65 and older living in the continental U.S. participated in the study. The survey phase of the study was conducted over a two-year period, during which each participant was tested five times at six-month intervals. Okun and his colleagues then tracked the death records of these participants for another four years after the survey data collection had ended.
“We did this study because volunteering is an important way that people can contribute to society while helping themselves to age better,” Okun said. “This study was part of a larger effort to identify factors that contribute to successful aging.”
Okun and his colleagues were particularly interested in whether volunteering was more beneficial for older adults with functional limitations or without them.
“Older adults benefit from volunteering, and those with problems in carrying out the activities of daily living appear to benefit the most,” Okun said. “In other words, our findings indicate that the increased risk of dying associated with functional limitations can be offset or negated by volunteering.”
These results were not surprising, Okun said.
“However, older adults with functional limitations are less likely to volunteer than older adults who are free of functional limitations,” Okun said. “So, we should recruit more older adults with modest functional limitations to volunteer.”
These findings have significant implications for our society and its changing population, according to Okun.
“Because we are on the edge of having the Baby Boomers reach the age of 65, it is important that we find ways to tap into their expertise, to keep them healthy and to keep them contributing to society,” he said.
Okun suggested that this can be done through “virtual volunteering,” for example, by having retired accountants helping to prepare free tax returns for others online. It can also be done over the phone by having an older adult call one of his or her peers living in an isolated or rural area now and again to make sure that the person is okay.
In addition, the results of the study suggest that volunteering in one’s community can neutralize feelings of helplessness that come with many functional limitations.
In short, having a measure of control over one’s life and environment can produce a renewed sense of usefulness for the person in question, especially when he or she has been constrained by certain physical—as opposed to cognitive—limitations, Okun said.
Because scientists are typically reluctant to draw causal conclusions, Newsom and his fellow researchers cannot claim that the act of volunteering alone helps people to live longer. The data shows, at most, a strong correlation between those who happen to volunteer and those who happen to live longer.
According to Newsom, there may be other explanations for the correlation between volunteering and longevity.
“It may very well be that there’s some aspect of staying involved and being active and interacting with others that is part of the volunteering process and that has beneficial effects on health,” Newsom said. “But [we don’t know] whether or not that applies to every individual, or that there’s some people who that wouldn’t apply to.”
The results suggest that certain social factors have an important impact on one’s health, Newsom said.
“We’re not just talking about someone who feels a little bit better because they’ve been socially engaged,” Newsom said. “We’re talking about someone who actually lives longer, has a lower risk of death, as a result of social engagement.”
Newsom added that other researchers support this finding as well.?