Volunteering, chronic stress, and systemic inflammation among middle-aged and older adults.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Although there is a strong theoretical foundation suggesting that prosocial behaviors, such as formal volunteering, can reduce systemic inflammation, empirical support for this link is limited and the potential stress-buffering effect of volunteering remains under-studied. This study aims to address these gaps by examining the relationships between volunteering, chronic stress, and systemic inflammation, measured by C-reactive protein (CRP). In doing so, we conducted distributional analysis to analyze CRP which allowed for identifying subgroups within the population that might benefit most from volunteering.

Methods

We used longitudinal data from the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study (N = 7994). Unconditional quantile regression (UQR) models we

SUBMITTER: Han SH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12315750 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature