Sensory Impairments and Objective and Subjective Social Isolation

Background/Purpose:

Social isolation has a profound influence on health and well-being. Nevertheless, there are only a handful of studies that examine how sensory impairments influence social isolation. This is important because sensory impairments and disability may greatly influence social isolation, as individuals with sensory impairments may find it more difficult to connect and interact with others, leading to greater social isolation. Furthermore, to the investigators’ knowledge, there are no studies that examine how sensory impairments influence both objective and subjective social isolation, and different types of isolation (i.e., family, friends, and congregation members). Therefore, our research objective is to determine how sensory impairments influence multiple types of social isolation. We hypothesize that sensory impairments will be associated with greater objective and subjective social isolation among family members, friends, and congregational members.

Methods

We used the National Survey of American Life, a nationally representative study in the United States of adults age 18 and older, to address our research objectives. We had six main dependent variables, including: subjective isolation from 1) family; 2) from friends; and 3) from congregational members, and objective isolation from 4) family; 5) from friends; and 6) from congregational members. The two key independent variables were self-rated hearing impairment and self-rated vision impairment. Covariates include race/ethnicity (African American, Black Caribbean, and non-Hispanic White), age (measured continuously), gender (male female), education (measure continuously), income (measured continuously), and marital status (married, divorced/separated/never married). We used six multivariate logistic regression to examine the relationships between sensory impairments and social isolation.

Results

Approximately 6%, 13%, and 37% were subjectively isolated from family, friends, and congregational members, and 5%, 11%, and 33% were objectively isolated from family, friends, and congregational members, respectively. Furthermore, approximately 6% and 10% of the sample had hearing and vision impairment, respectively. Individuals with vision impairment were more likely to be subjectively isolated from their family members and from their friends but were less likely to be subjectively isolated from congregational members. Additionally, individuals with vision impairment were more likely to be objectively isolated from friends but were less likely to be objectively isolated from congregational members. Individuals with hearing impairment were more likely to be subjectively isolated from their friends.

Conclusion/Implications

We found hearing and vision impairments significantly influenced objective and subjective isolation from different social groupings. Vision impairment had a much stronger influence on objective and subjective isolation in comparison to hearing impairment. For the most part, our hypotheses confirmed that hearing and vision impairments were associated with greater objective and subjective isolation among family members and friends. Interestingly, and counter to our hypotheses, vision impairments were associated with less objective and subjective isolation from congregational members. These findings highlight the dynamic relationships between sensory impairments and social isolation. Congregational members/networks may be useful for decreasing objective and subjective social isolation, especially for people with greater sensory impairments. Findings from the current study may be used to develop evidence based interventions to enhance social relationships among those with sensory impairments.