Social Networks and Memory over 15 Years of Followup in a Cohort of Older Australians: Results from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Table 1

Summary statistics for 706 participants with no cognitive impairment at baseline of ALSA.

Characteristic	Summary^1
Age years mean (SD^2)	78.6 (5.7)
Gender
Male	476 (67.9)
Female	230 (32.1)
Place of residence
Community	673 (95.3)
Institution	33 (4.7)
Marital status
Married/De facto	413 (58.5)
Widowed	244 (34.6)
Single	49 (6.9)
Age left school
≤14 years	360 (51.0)
>14 years	346 (49.0)
Number morbid conditions mean (SD)	1.6 (1.1)
Mobility
No disability	512 (72.3)
Disability	194 (27.7)
Depressive symptoms
CES-D < 17	621 (88.0)
CES-D ≥ 17	85 (12.0)
Alcohol problem
AUDIT score < 8	671 (95.0)
AUDIT score ≥ 8	35 (5.0)
Smoking status
Never smoker	320 (45.3)
Ex smoker	340 (48.2)
Current smoker	46 (6.5)
Children social network score mean (SD)	0.05 (0.75)
Relatives social network score mean (SD)	0.02 (0.77)
Friends social network score mean (SD)	0.13 (0.74)
Confidants social network score mean (SD)	0.08 (0.75)
Total social network score mean (SD)	0.27 (1.64)
Mini-mental state exam mean (SD)	28.3 (1.7)
Memory composite mean (SD)	15.7 (3.4)

¹Shown is the number (%) of participants unless otherwise indicated.
²SD is standard deviation.