Skip to main content
Intellect

New BYU study finds spouses often mirror each others' health

A new study by a Brigham Young University professor shows a strong association between the health of people and the health of their spouses.

"It turns out that the health of your spouse is as strong a predictor for your own health as your level of education and your economic status, two proven health indicators," says Sven Wilson, an assistant professor of political science who specializes in health economics and demography. His study is reported in the September issue of the journal "Social Science and Medicine."

Finding that sick people tend to be married to other sick people has important health policy implications, Wilson believes.

"When addressing health issues, physicians and policy makers should remember the patients involved will often have spouses likewise struggling with their health," Wilson says. "Consequently, many health policies should be focused on families, not just individuals." He also said that individuals who have an ill spouse may want to reevaluate their financial plans, since a partner's condition may be an indicator of their own undetected health problems.

Previous research has established that married individuals are collectively healthier than singles. In this study, Wilson wanted to test his notion that individuals within marriages would often mirror one another's health. He obtained lifestyle and demographic information gathered from more than 4,700 couples in their 50s from the Health and Retirement Study, a 1992 nationwide survey. He then used statistical models to test how much the subjects' traits influenced their overall health, as measured by three different diagnostic tools.

He found strong evidence for a correlation in spouses' health. For instance, a man in his early 50s who is in excellent health has about a 5 percent chance of having a wife in fair health and a 2 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health. But a man in poor health has a 24 percent chance of being married to a woman in fair health and a 13 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health.

Wilson says several factors explain much of the correlation he found. "We know that people tend to choose spouses with similar backgrounds, and we also know that level of education and economic status are proven predictors of health status," Wilson said. "So if people with the same health-related characteristics are marrying each other, it stands to reason they would have similar health."

Wilson also found that couples tend to make similar choices after they are married that will affect their health - decisions like how much to smoke or drink or what foods to eat.

He also suspects other causes for the correlation he found between spouses' health - factors that were not observable in the data he studied.

"Spouses obviously share environmental risks - they breathe the same air and are exposed to the same germs," Wilson said. "Another factor probably at work is that spouses share many of the same emotional stresses, such as problems with children, and there is also the burden of being a caregiver for a spouse in poor health, which may take a significant toll on the caregiving partner."

Because of the propensity for shared illness, Wilson emphasizes the need for the national healthcare debate to acknowledge the importance of examining solutions at the household, rather than individual, level.

"When spouses find themselves both in poor health, they each lack the support a healthy spouse would provide and both face the additional stress of dealing with the sick loved one," said Wilson. "In these cases, two sick spouses add up to a serious drain on the financial and other resources of the family and the public."

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

BYU educators, Native American tribal leaders team up to enrich Utah elementary arts programs

September 14, 2023
The BYU ARTS Partnership, part of the David O. McKay School of Education, began 16 years ago to increase the quality and quantity of arts education through dance, drama, music and visual art in elementary schools. The NACI is one of its four initiatives.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

Female judges, especially women of color, cited far less frequently than male judges

September 12, 2023
Researchers from UNC Charlotte, University of Louisville, University of Georgia and Brigham Young University analyzed how the race and gender of federal judges might be impacting judicial processes. Specifically, they wanted to see which types of judges get the most attention from their peers when they have complete discretion to reference another judge’s work.

overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

BYU is one of the top universities in the nation, according to new Wall Street Journal rankings

September 06, 2023
BYU comes in at No. 20 overall in the newly released 2024 Best Colleges in America rankings from The Wall Street Journal and College Pulse, joining the likes of Princeton, MIT, Yale, Stanford and Harvard in the top 25.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText=