Social relationships and inflammatory markers: An analysis of Taiwan and the U.S.

► Prior studies suggested that inflammation may mediate the strong link between social relationships and mortality. ► Our results yielded weak evidence of a link between social relationships and six inflammatory markers in Taiwan and the U.S. ► Social integration had a significant, but weak inverse association with CRP in Taiwan. ► We found no evidence that higher perceived support was associated with lower inflammation. ► Given the proposed role of inflammation, the small effect sizes and lack of robustness across markers were surprising.