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Novel Indicators of Day-to-Day Loneliness and Aging: Examining Biological, Phenotypic, and Functional Outcomes Across Multiple Timescales

Award Number: R01AG104067
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2026
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/31/2031

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Novel Indicators of Day-to-Day Loneliness and Aging: Examining Biological, Phenotypic, and Functional Outcomes Across Multiple Timescales - ABSTRACT Loneliness is at the center of a public health crisis, affecting nearly half of U.S. adults and costing approximately $6.7 billion in excess Medicare spending. Declared a medical epidemic by the Surgeon General, loneliness' mortality risks and disease burden are equivalent to known preventable killers like smoking. Accelerated aging is a likely pathway that links loneliness to earlier mortality, with lonelier people showing a cascade of faster biological aging and functional decline. Lonelier people also engage in unhealthy behaviors (e.g., smoking, alcohol, poor sleep), which further hasten aging. While most research treats loneliness as a stable trait, emerging evidence shows that loneliness can fluctuate from day to day. This daily approach offers an important new way to understand how loneliness worsens aging outcomes. Our pilot data have identified three patterns of daily loneliness—average daily loneliness, loneliness volatility (day-to-day fluctuations), and loneliness reactivity to daily triggers—that each explain variance in cross-sectional biological and functional aging outcomes, beyond trait loneliness. This leads to critical questions about 1) how loneliness emerges in daily life, 2) how daily patterns of loneliness predict long-term biological, physical, cognitive, and functional aging outcomes, and 3) whether unhealthy behaviors compound these effects. This project leverages two existing longitudinal studies of adulthood and aging: the NIA-funded Midlife in the United States study (MIDUS, age range 35-80) and the Berlin Aging Study (BASE-II, age range 70-90). These studies provide an unprecedented opportunity to examine both the daily dynamics of loneliness and key aging outcomes over a decade. With these rich data, the proposed project will be the first to map the timescales over which daily loneliness and its aging consequences unfold, extending trait loneliness theory to the daily context. Aim 1 evaluates theoretically-driven within-person features that predict daily loneliness. Aim 2 examines how the three dimensions of daily loneliness predict long-term changes in biological and functional aging. Aim 3 investigates whether adverse health behaviors compound the aging-related effects of daily loneliness. This work will establish how and for whom the dynamics of daily loneliness predict the long-term course of healthy aging. In turn, identifying the most important triggers of daily loneliness will establish critical intervention targets to alter how the dynamics of loneliness emerge in daily life. Combining these insights with the role of health behaviors enables a precision-medicine approach to just-in-time loneliness interventions in order to optimize their health benefits. In this way, the project will illuminate how to short-circuit the cumulative health risks of loneliness over decades.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $677,756 )
2026	2026	ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY	1475 N SCOTTSDALE RD STE 200	SCOTTSDALE	AZ	85257	MARICOPA	USA	Aging Research	001	1	8/19/2026	NEW	$106,161
2026	2026	ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY	1475 N SCOTTSDALE RD STE 200	SCOTTSDALE	AZ	85257	MARICOPA	USA	Aging Research	000	1	8/18/2026	NEW	$571,595
														Subtotal = $677,756

Grand Total All Awards = $677,756

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Novel Indicators of Day-to-Day Loneliness and Aging: Examining Biological, Phenotypic, and Functional Outcomes Across Multiple Timescales

Award Number: R01AG104067

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2026

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/31/2031

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