Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 10-28-2013
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Public Health
Abstract
Background
Past research shows that spousal death results in elevated mortality risk for the surviving spouse. However, most prior studies have inadequately controlled for socioeconomic status (SES), and it is unclear whether this ‘widowhood effect’ persists over time.
Methods
Health and Retirement Study participants aged 50+ years and married in 1998 (n = 12 316) were followed through 2008 for widowhood status and mortality (2912 deaths). Discrete-time survival analysis was used to compare mortality for the widowed versus the married.
Results
Odds of mortality during the first 3 months post-widowhood were significantly higher than in the continuously married (odds ratio (OR) for men = 1.87, 95% CI: 1.27, 2.75; OR for women = 1.47, 95% CI: 0.96, 2.24) in models adjusted for age, gender, race and baseline SES (education, household wealth and household income), behavioral risk factors and co-morbidities. Twelve months following bereavement, men experienced borderline elevated mortality (OR = 1.16, 95% CI: 1.00, 1.35), whereas women did not (OR = 1.07, 95% CI: 0.90, 1.28), though the gender difference was non-significant.
Conclusion
The ‘widowhood effect’ was not fully explained by adjusting for pre-widowhood SES and particularly elevated within the first few months after widowhood. These associations did not differ by sex.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdt101
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Moon, J. Robin; Glamour, M. Maria; Vable, Anusha M.; Liu, Sze Yan; and Subramanian, S.V., "Short- and long-term associations between widowhood and mortality in the United States: longitudinal analyses" (2013). Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works. 132.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/public-health-facpubs/132
Published Citation
Moon, J. Robin, M. Maria Glymour, Anusha M. Vable, Sze Y. Liu, and S. V. Subramanian. "Short-and long-term associations between widowhood and mortality in the United States: longitudinal analyses." Journal of public health 36, no. 3 (2014): 382-389. Harvard
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