The Power of Volunteering: A Path to Healthier Aging

Herb Grulke and Mark Piepenburg are shining examples of how volunteering can positively influence the aging process. Mark recently celebrated an impressive milestone of 11,000 volunteer hours with Habitat for Humanity, while Herb, a dedicated ReStore volunteer, just turned 90 years young.

Volunteering, even in small amounts, has been linked to slower age acceleration for both retirees and working individuals, according to a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

“We found that the effects of a moderate level of volunteering — between 50 to 199 hours per year, or about one to four hours per week — were strongest for retired people,” said Cal Halvorsen, an associate professor at the Brown School and co-author of the study “Does volunteering reduce epigenetic age acceleration among retired and working older adults? Results from the Health and Retirement Study.” The study will be published in the January issue of the journal Social Science & Medicine.

“It’s quite possible that the act of volunteering provided a sense of social and meaningful interaction, and physical activity, that those who were still working were already receiving,” he said. “Those qualities have separately been linked to less rapid epigenetic age acceleration.”

Using data from the national Health and Retirement Study, the authors found that volunteering was linked to slower biological aging. Among retired individuals, moderate volunteering was significantly associated with decelerated epigenetic age acceleration, indicating greater benefits for retirees compared to working individuals.

“In other words, at the biological level, volunteers aged just a bit slower than non-volunteers,” Halvorsen said.

The more one volunteers, the more pronounced the impacts become. At more than 200 hours of volunteering, the health benefits are significant for both retirees and working individuals, suggesting that higher engagement in volunteering can promote well-being regardless of one’s work status.

“In general, we found that volunteering more than 200 hours a year — more than about four hours per week, on average — was associated with the greatest reduction in age acceleration,” Halvorsen said. “This type of consistent engagement likely provides a higher ‘dose’ of the social, physical, and purposeful interaction that we think is good for people.”

Even with lower amounts of volunteering — one to 49 hours per year — the benefits were more pronounced for those who were retired.

“This might be because the volunteering made up for some of the beneficial effects of engagement in paid work that retirees no longer had,” he said. “So overall, I think we can generally say that volunteering later in life is good for you, but additional research could definitely help to explain some of these specific findings.”
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Data were derived from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), including pre-treatment covariates (2012), volunteer frequency and work status (2014), and five DNA methylation measures (2016) (N = 2,605). Generalized linear models were estimated to examine the relationship between volunteering and epigenetic age acceleration, stratified by retirement status. The analyses adjusted for relevant covariates and utilized energy balancing weights to account for selection into volunteering.