Positive affect during adolescence and health and well-being in adulthood: An outcome-wide longitudinal approach.

Journal: PLoS medicine

Volume: 21

Issue: 4

Year of Publication: 

Affiliated Institutions:  Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Human Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America. Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.

Abstract summary 

Several intergovernmental organizations, including the World Health Organization and United Nations, are urging countries to use well-being indicators for policymaking. This trend, coupled with increasing recognition that positive affect is beneficial for health/well-being, opens new avenues for intervening on positive affect to improve outcomes. However, it remains unclear if positive affect in adolescence shapes health/well-being in adulthood. We examined if increases in positive affect during adolescence were associated with better health/well-being in adulthood across 41 outcomes.We conducted a longitudinal cohort study using data from Add Health-a prospective and nationally representative cohort of community-dwelling U.S. adolescents. Using regression models, we evaluated if increases in positive affect over 1 year (between Wave I; 1994 to 1995 and Wave II; 1995 to 1996) were associated with better health/well-being 11.37 years later (in Wave IV; 2008; N = 11,040) or 20.64 years later (in Wave V; 2016 to 2018; N = 9,003). Participants were aged 15.28 years at study onset, and aged 28.17 or 37.20 years-during the final assessment. Participants with the highest (versus lowest) positive affect had better outcomes on 3 (of 13) physical health outcomes (e.g., higher cognition (β = 0·12, 95% CI = 0·05, 0·19, p = 0.002)), 3 (of 9) health behavior outcomes (e.g., lower physical inactivity (RR = 0·80, CI = 0·66, 0·98, p = 0.029)), 6 (of 7) mental health outcomes (e.g., lower anxiety (RR = 0·81, CI = 0·71, 0·93, p = 0.003)), 2 (of 3) psychological well-being (e.g., higher optimism (β = 0·20, 95% CI = 0·12, 0·28, p < 0.001)), 4 (of 7) social outcomes (e.g., lower loneliness (β = -0·09, 95% CI = -0·16, -0·02, p = 0.015)), and 1 (of 2) civic/prosocial outcomes (e.g., more voting (RR = 1·25, 95% CI = 1·16, 1·36, p < 0.001)). Study limitations include potential unmeasured confounding and reverse causality.Enhanced positive affect during adolescence is linked with a range of improved health/well-being outcomes in adulthood. These findings suggest the promise of testing scalable positive affect interventions and policies to more definitively assess their impact on outcomes.

Authors & Co-authors:  Kim Wilkinson Okuzono Chen Shiba Cowden VanderWeele

Study Outcome 

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Statistics
Citations : 
Authors :  7
Identifiers
Doi : 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004365
SSN : 1549-1676
Study Population
Male,Female
Mesh Terms
Other Terms
Study Design
Cohort Study
Study Approach
Country of Study
Publication Country
United States