SynthesisPsychological medicine2025
Loneliness and cognition in older adults: A meta-analysis of harmonized studies from the United States, England, India, China, South Africa, Mexico, and Chile.
Synthesis in Psychological medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- From verbal fluency to naturalistic speech: a scoping review of language correlates of loneliness and social isolation in older adults.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Loneliness and Plasma Biomarkers of Neurodegeneration in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analyses.The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry · 2026Article
- Cross-sectional associations of loneliness with plasma p-tau217 and neurofilament light chain in dementia-free older adults in the INSPIRE-T baseline cohort.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2026Article
- Effect of Environment on the Cognition of Older Adults: A Narrative Review.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Socio-emotional well-being is associated with cognitive function and informant-rated cognitive decline: Results from the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol in Europe.Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS · 2026Article
- Joint association of postoperative visual acuity status and baseline loneliness with cognitive impairment after cataract surgery in older adults: a retrospective cohort study.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Relationships between primal emotional systems and the sense of loneliness: The mediating role of early maladaptive schemas.PloS one · 2026Article
- Association of 24-hour movement guideline adherence with inhibitory control in older adults: the mediating role of general self-efficacy.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Loneliness and cognitive decline among U.S. adults: A stratified analysis of the BRFSS.PloS one · 2026Article
- Loneliness and subjective cognitive concerns in daily life.Aging & mental health · 2025Article
- Five-factor model personality traits and cognition in the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol sub-study of the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe.International journal of personality psychology · 2025Article
- Possible and Probable Dementia and Depressive/Anxiety Symptoms: Mediation Effects of Social Engagement and Loneliness.Research on agingArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLoneliness is a risk factor for late-life dementia. There is less consistent evidence of its association with cognitive performance. This study examined the replicability of the association between loneliness and overall and domain-specific cognitive function and informant-rated cognitive decline in cohorts from seven countries: the United States, England, India, China, South Africa, Mexico, and Chile.
methodsData were from the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol administered in seven population-based studies (total N > 20,000). Participants reported their loneliness, completed a battery of cognitive tests, and nominated a knowledgeable informant to rate their cognitive decline. Random-effect meta-analyses were used to summarize the associations from each cohort.
resultsLoneliness was associated with poor overall cognitive performance and informant-rated cognitive decline controlling for sociodemographic factors (meta-analytic correlation for overall cognition = -.10 [95% CI = -.13, -.06] and informant-rated decline = .16 [95% CI = .14, .17]). Despite some heterogeneity, the associations were significant across samples from Africa, Asia, Europe, North, Central, and South America. The meta-analysis also indicated an association with specific cognitive domains: episodic memory, speed-attention, visuospatial abilities, numeric reasoning, and verbal fluency. The associations were attenuated but persisted when depressive symptoms were added as a covariate. Depression, cognitive impairment, and sociodemographic factors did not consistently moderate the associations across samples.
conclusionsLoneliness is associated with poor performance across multiple domains of cognition and observer-rated cognitive decline, associations that replicated across diverse world regions and cultures.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.