Study finds volunteering decreases mortality risk among retired

Moral of the story: Start volunteering, it may save your life. This study looks at retirees and found volunteering has bidirectional affects with health. Not only is volunteering a sign of good health, it also improves health. Get yourself, your parents or your grandparents out there volunteering.

Study finds volunteering decreases mortality risk among retired The Advisory Board Company 05/19/2009

Retirees older than age 65 who volunteer have a lower mortality risk than their non-volunteering peers, according to a study presented earlier this month at the American Geriatrics Society’s annual meeting in Chicago. Although previous research identified a link between volunteering and lower mortality rates, such studies involved individuals born before 1920 and failed to adjust the results for possible confounders, such as socioeconomic status and chronic health conditions. To assess the relationship when accounting for those variables, researchers from the University of California-San Francisco and Montefiore Medical Center examined 6,360 retired men and women older than age 65 who were enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study—considered representative of all U.S. adults—in 2002. Study subjects had an average age of 78, and 60% were female. Examining participants’ volunteerism patterns, the researchers found that 12% of participants who volunteered died, compared with 26% of non-volunteers. After adjusting the data for participants’ demographics, socioeconomic status, chronic health conditions, geriatric syndromes, functional limitations, self-rated health, depression, and cognition, the researchers found that the link “wasn’t as strong, but still existed.” Commenting on the study, one researcher notes that volunteering may be associated with self-efficacy—a belief in one’s own abilities to accomplish tasks—which helps individuals remain engaged in a healthy and active lifestyle (Gordon, HealthDay, 5/8).