Linda Waite

About

Linda Waite is the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and a Senior Fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago. Her research interests include social demography, aging, the family, health, sexuality, and social well-being. She is the Principal Investigator of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), a population-based longitudinal study of health among older adults funded by the National Institute on Aging. This project employs a comprehensive approach to understanding the health and well-being of older, community-dwelling Americans through a nationally-representative survey first conducted in 2005, with subsequent reinterviews in 2010, 2015, and 2021. Under her leadership, the interdisciplinary team has developed advanced methods for measuring population health, including a COVID-19 study in 2020 to assess older adults' experiences during the pandemic. Her work has produced groundbreaking insights into the links between social relationships and various health outcomes, including physical, psychological, cognitive, and functional health. Waite has received notable recognition such as a MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Sociology
• Medicine
• Political Science
• Psychiatry
• Social psychology
• Gerontology
• Developmental psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Internal medicine

Selected publications

• The epidemiology of social isolation and loneliness among older adults during the last years of life

  Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2021 · 115 citations

  BACKGROUND: Social isolation and loneliness are critical to the health of older adults, but they have not been well-described at the end of life. OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence and correlates of social isolation and loneliness among older adults in the last years of life. DESIGN: Nationally representative, cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Health and Retirement Study, 2006-2016 data. PARTICIPANTS: Adults age > 50 interviewed once in the last 4 years of life (n = 3613). MEASUREMENTS: We d…

  DOI

• A single question assessment of loneliness in older adults during the <scp>COVID</scp> ‐19 pandemic: A nationally‐representative study

  Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2022-02-10 · 57 citations

  letterOpen access

  Loneliness is common, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting many clinicians and researchers to assess for loneliness.1-3 However, the best approach for screening is unclear. One option is a single question directly asking about loneliness (“how often are you lonely?”). However, concerns about sensitivity or stigma surrounding self-identifying as “lonely” have led to use of multi-item scales that avoid the term “lonely,”4 which can be time-intensive or unfamiliar to clinicians.5 Th…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Hearing Impairment and Loneliness in Older Adults in the United States

  Journal of Applied Gerontology · 2020 · 45 citations

  = 3,196). Individuals reporting fair/poor hearing had 50% (95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.09-2.05]) higher odds of any loneliness compared with those reporting excellent hearing after adjusting for comorbidity index, functional and cognitive ability, self-reported health, and demographic characteristics. Test for trend suggests a dose-response relationship over levels of hearing impairment. Hearing impairment is highly prevalent and may be an important target for consideration in intervention…

  DOI

• The association of gait speed and self‐reported difficulty walking with social isolation: A nationally‐representative study

  Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2023-03-31 · 26 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Mobility assessments are commonly used among older adults as risk stratification for falls, preoperative function, frailty, and mortality. We determined if gait speed and self-reported difficulty walking are similarly associated with social isolation and loneliness, which are key markers of social well-being and linked to health outcomes. METHODS: We used 2015-2016 data from the National Social life Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), an in-person nationally-representative survey of 26…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Religion, Families, and Health

  Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2020 · 17 citations

  Religion is a major social institution in the United States. While the scientific community has experienced a resurgence in the idea that there are important linkages between religion and family life and religion and health outcomes, this area of study is still in its early stages of development, scattered across multiple disciplines, and of uneven quality. To date, no book has featured both reviews of the literature and new empirical findings that define this area for the present and set the ag…

  DOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01AG033903

  NIH · $5.8M · 2015

• NIH Grant P20AG012857

  NIH · $1.8M · 1999

• National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project: Rounds 4.2 and 4.4

  NIH · $42.7M · 2013–2027

Frequent coauthors

• Louise C. Hawkley

  National Opinion Research Center

  35 shared

• L. Philip Schumm

  University of Chicago

  32 shared

• Ashwin Kotwal

  University of California, San Francisco

  32 shared

• Kristen Wroblewski

  Chicago Department of Public Health

  28 shared

• Edward O. Laumann

  University of Chicago

  24 shared

• William Dale

  City of Hope

  22 shared

• Megan Huisingh‐Scheetz

  University of Chicago

  21 shared

• Diane S. Lauderdale

  Chicago Department of Public Health

  19 shared

Awards & honors

• MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging, National I…
• Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Similar researchers at University of Chicago

• Stephen Raudenbushh-93
• Neil Brennerh-50
• Terry N. Clarkh-38