Patterns of stress across the life course and their role in mental health and loneliness in later life

This project asks the questions whether, and how, the timing and accumulation of different types of stressors (i.e., experiences that cause stress) across the life course impact mental health and loneliness later in life. How do stress, mental health, and loneliness interact across the life course? Are there ways to counteract the negative impact of stressors through modifiable factors across the life course, such as social resources and lifestyle factors?

Novelty of the project

Despite the available evidence on the impact of stressors at different ages on mental health outcomes, surprisingly little is known about the synergistic patterns of different types of stressors throughout the life course, i.e., how stressors are potentially linked, accumulate, and/or occur in or out of sensitive periods. Most studies focus on specific measures of stress at just one or two time points. Hence, we currently do not know if multiple stressors have additive or multiplicative effects. As a result, policymakers have a fragmented picture of this issue. The project’s unique set of data from multiple longitudinal surveys also makes it possible to study the temporal dynamics of the stress-mental health-loneliness nexus and how these factors interact throughout the life course.

A life-course perspective provides a framework for understanding how stressors and their mitigating factors are related to each other across the life course, and how they can affect an individual over a long period of time. The life-course perspective argues that personal trajectories are shaped by the accumulation of risks and resources. Accordingly, people who have experienced severe adversity and stress in their lives would be more susceptible to early mortality and illness in adulthood, especially in older age.

Although stressors may have severe negative effects on mental health outcomes and loneliness, they are modifiable risk factors. Different age groups are likely to have different sources of stress, yet little is known about how these different sources of stress are exacerbated or mitigated through lifestyle and social resources. Moreover, these buffering factors may work differently across the life course.

Purpose

The overarching aim of this project is to investigate how exposure to different kinds of stressors throughout the life course is associated with mental health outcomes and loneliness in older adults. Additionally, the multi-directional associations between stress, mental health and loneliness throughout the life course will be investigated. We will also study how modifiable factors, like social networks, social support, and lifestyle, during different ages can negatively or positively impact these associations – that is, which factors can buffer against stress or increase susceptibility towards stressors and when in the life course these factors have the most impact.

Data

In the project we will use four different longitudinal data sources:
1) The Level of Living Survey (LNU) combined with the Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the oldest old (SWEOLD) which are both nationally representative. When combining LNU and SWEOLD, there is longitudinal data from 1968 to 2021 for ages 18 to 100+.
2) The Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) has data collection every two years and data is available from 2006 to 2022. The data collection is conducted yearly since 2023. Participants are between 25 and 81 years old.
3) The Swedish twin studies of aging: Swedish Adoption-Twin Study of Aging (SATSA), Origins of Variance in the Oldest Old (OCTO), and Aging in Women and Men: A Longitudinal Study of Gender Differences in Health Behavior and Health among the Elderly (GENDER) were all recruited from the population-based Swedish Twin Registry and incorporated similar measurements. SATSA included adults aged 40 to 90+ at intake, whereas OCTO-Twin and GENDER focused on adults in their 70s and 80s at intake.

4) The Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank (CAMB). CAMB is a database established to contribute new knowledge on the life course determinants of health and early aging in mid- and late life, designed with particular emphasis on the earlier stages of the aging process. read more here: https://camb.ku.dk/

All four data sources include retrospective questions about childhood conditions.

Publications

Finkel, D., Hyde, M., Hasselgren, C., Sacco, L., Sindi, S., & Nilsen, C. (2025). Both childhood and adult perceived financial strain impact age trajectories of change in emotional health in late adulthood. Aging & Mental Health, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2025.2464709

Contact person

Agenda 2030 goals