MARITAL STATUS AND HEALTH IN MIDDLE AND LATE LIFE

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DESCRIPTION (adapted from the applicant's abstract): Marital status is strongly related to mortality, physical health, and mental health. Previous research shows that marital status may influence health through a variety of mechanisms, and that these mechanisms vary for men and women. We know almost nothing about how the relation between marital status and health varies by other sociodemographic characteristics, including race and ethnicity, nor how the mechanisms linking marital status and health varies across groups. Moreover, we do not understand very well how the association between marital status and health depends on the dimension of health under consideration. Finally, little work has examined the prospective impact of both types of marital disruption, widowhood and divorce, on health, social, social, and economic outcomes in midlife and old age. Ultimately, the investigators plan to explore extensively the impact of marital status and, especially, marital disruption on wellbeing including health, social, and economic status in midlife and late life, and how the nature of this impact varies according to important sociodemographic characteristics. This pilot project has three primary goals: 1) To identify significant variation in the association between marital status and health by sex, age (midlife vs. Old age), race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status; 2) Test the intervening effects of social and economic variables in explaining significant group differences in the health impact of marital status; 3) Examine in rich detail the effects of marital disruption in midlife and late life on health, social and economic status and how these effects vary for men and women. The investigators will use data from two studies of near elderly and elderly: the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) and Assets and Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old (AHEAD). They will use the initial HRS 1992 survey and the 1994, 1996, and 1998 HRS reinterviews and the initial AHEAD 1993 survey and the 1995 and 1998 AHEAD reinterviews. These surveys cover a wide range of data including extensive family support, economic status and health information. The investigators will explore a much larger array of health outcomes physical functioning, mental health, cognitive health, self-assessed health, and chronic conditions than has been previously studied in research on marital status and health. The proposed effort will lay the groundwork for developing and R01 application to explore the impact of marital status and marital disruption on health and other social and economic outcomes, in midlife and late life and identify which demographic subgroups are more or less vulnerable to particular marital statuses and to marital disruption.