The impact of social participation on older people’s death risk: an analysis from CLHLS

Abstract

This study uses nested Cox proportional hazard models to analyze data from five waves (2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014) of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey. We found that secular social participation and religious participation both contributed to statistically lower death risk among older respondents. These associations still held after controlling for a wide range of covariates. In particular, secular social participation predicted a greater decrease in death risk and had interactive effects with gender and age-group. Female and young–old adults enjoyed more health benefits from participating in secular social activities than their male or old–old counterparts, respectively. This interactive effect was not observed regarding the impact of religious participation on death hazard.