Momentary loneliness among older adults: Contextual differences and their moderation by gender and race/ethnicity

Home alone together: Differential links between momentary contexts and real-time loneliness among older adults from Chicago during versus before the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Here, we extend the aforementioned CHART findings of real-time contextual influences on older adults’ momentary loneliness by considering how these associations differ during compared to before the COVID-19 crisis ( Compernolle et al, 2021 ). During (versus before) the pandemic, we expect that: Older adults experienced more intense momentary loneliness.…”

“…Following prior studies, we excluded from analysis EMAs that were started more than 30 min after ping receipt or that took more than 30 min to complete. Additional analytic decisions unique to this dataset are summarized in Supplementary materials and described in more detail in a recent study using these data ( Compernolle et al, 2021 ). The resulting analytic sample comprised 13,422 EMAs among 110 respondents.…”

“…Prior EMA findings from the longitudinal Chicago Health and Activity Space in Real-Time (CHART) study revealed that before the pandemic, being momentarily at home (vs. elsewhere) and alone (vs. with others) were each associated with greater momentary loneliness among older adults ( Compernolle et al, 2021 ). What remains unknown is whether these contexts affected loneliness differently on a momentary basis during the pandemic.…”

The Association Between Loneliness and Inflammation: Findings From an Older Adult Sample

“…Trait assessments of mood are more likely than momentary assessments to be influenced by broad self-perceptions of the self and memory bias (Shiffman et al, 2008 ). Moreover, levels of momentary loneliness may oscillate in daily life, sometimes depending on environmental or social context (e.g., being at home or alone) (Compernolle et al, 2021 ). Therefore, each measure offers different information about loneliness.…”

“…Additionally, in comparison to retrospective measures, multiple studies have found that momentary measures of psychosocial stress and emotions have better predicted physiological markers indicative of disease risk (for review, see Conner and Barrett, 2012 ), including inflammatory markers (Graham-Engeland et al, 2018 ). Given that loneliness fluctuates in daily life (van Roekel et al, 2014 ; Compernolle et al, 2021 ), an aggregated momentary measure of loneliness may better reflect experienced loneliness and may relate differently to inflammation as compared with global, retrospective assessments. We are unaware of other research that has examined how aggregated momentary measures of loneliness relate to inflammation.…”