Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41582109›Full record

Observational studyAging clinical and experimental research2026

Association of loneliness and perceived social exclusion with donation behavior among community-dwelling individuals aged 40 and over: longitudinal evidence from the nationally representative German Ageing Survey.

André Hajek, Dong Keon Yon, Pinar Soysal, Karl Peltzer, Supa Pengpid, Hans-Helmut König

Abstract readObservational Study
In one paragraph

Observational study in Aging clinical and experimental research, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

André HajekDepartment of Health Economics and Health Services Research, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg Center for Health Economics, Hamburg, Germany. a.hajek@uke.de.
Dong Keon YonCenter for Digital Health, Medical Science Research Institute, Kyung Hee University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
Pinar SoysalDepartment of Geriatric Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul, Türkiye.
Karl PeltzerDepartment of Health Education and Behavioral Sciences, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Supa PengpidDepartment of Health Education and Behavioral Sciences, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Hans-Helmut KönigDepartment of Health Economics and Health Services Research, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg Center for Health Economics, Hamburg, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundThere is limited knowledge regarding the association of loneliness or social exclusion with donation behavior.

aimsOur aim was to investigate the association of loneliness and perceived social exclusion with donation behavior based on a longitudinal approach.

methodsLongitudinal data were taken from wave 5 (year 2014) to wave 8 (year 2023) of the German Ageing Survey encompassing community-dwelling individuals aged 40 years and over. Established tools were used to quantify loneliness and perceived social exclusion. The willingness to donate and the total amount (in euros) of all donations (in the last 12 months) served as outcome measures. Fixed effects (FE) regressions with cluster-robust standard errors were used.

resultsFE regressions showed that increases in loneliness were significantly associated with lower odds of donation after adjusting for socioeconomic factors, but became insignificant when accounting for lifestyle and health-related covariates. Conversely, a significant association was found between increases in perceived social exclusion and lower odds of donation across all models. However, neither changes in loneliness nor perceived social exclusion were significantly associated with changes in log amount of donations. Sociodemographic factors (i.e., age, sex, and education) did not moderate the identified associations. DISCUSSION: Even after adjusting for a wide array of covariates, our longitudinal study showed a significant and robust association between increases in social exclusion and lower odds of donation.

conclusionsAvoiding increases in perceived social exclusion could encourage the decision to donate, an important prosocial behavior, pending further longitudinal evidence. Cross-country comparisons are recommended.

Indexed as

AgingAging in PlaceGift GivingLonelinessSocial IsolationAdultAgedFemaleGermanyHumansLongitudinal StudiesMaleMiddle AgedAltruismDepressionDonationGenerous activitiesGermanyLonelinessMental healthProsocial behaviorSocial exclusionSocial isolation

Identifiers

PMID41582109
PMCPMC12886196

What Socratic holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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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.