Relationships and Health: Comparing Union Types

描述(申请人提供)：已婚的异性恋者比未婚者享有更多的健康和长寿，随着人们年龄的增长，婚姻对健康的重要性越来越大。然而，由于同性伴侣在美国大部分地区不能合法结婚，我们对婚姻对老年男女同性恋者的健康影响知之甚少。拟议的项目将提供第一个深入和系统的合法婚姻和健康分析，以比较同性恋、女同性恋和异性恋伴侣。这项拟议项目的主要目标是评估已婚男性和女性如何促进或阻碍彼此的健康，以及这些过程在同性恋、女同性恋和异性恋婚姻中的差异。这个项目的主要重点是揭示男女同性恋者和异性恋配偶相互影响彼此健康的途径和过程，因此我们将收集新的数据，并使用一种唯一适合于解决过程问题的分析方法。R21周期将被用来构建一个新的由三部分组成的混合方法数据集。我们将进行面对面的60分钟开放式和封闭式回答的基线调查，并收集60个同性婚姻、60个女同性恋婚姻和60个异性婚姻(N=360个人、180对夫妇、5040天日记)配偶双方14天的日常过程数据。日常过程(也称为日记)数据特别适合于调查在与配偶的日常互动中展开的心理社会过程，同时也考虑到这些互动的背景。从每段婚姻中的配偶双方获得的日记数据将被同时分析，以评估配偶动态和健康结果(即健康行为、心理状态和身体健康症状)的日常波动，以及将配偶动态与健康结果联系起来的机制(例如压力、社会支持)。基线调查中的开放式问题和之前收集的深度访谈数据也将提供定性数据，以分析解释和阐明日常过程分析中揭示的重要模式的含义和过程。这一混合方法项目将为涉及性别动态的卫生政策提供信息，通过这些动态，婚姻影响不同类型夫妇的健康。我们必须确定男女同性恋者和异性恋者婚姻中风险和韧性最高的领域，以便为政策和实践制定最有效的战略。R21机制的目的是支持初步和新颖的项目，这些项目随后会导致更大规模的研究。我们将利用拟议项目的发现，为未来R01应用程序的开发奠定基础，以创建关于男同性恋、女同性恋和异性恋人口婚姻和健康的国家数据集。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Married heterosexuals enjoy greater health and longevity than the unmarried, and the importance of marriage for health increases as people age. However, since same-sex couples cannot legally marry in most parts of the United States, we know very little about the health implications of marriage for aging gays and lesbians. The proposed project will provide the first in-depth and systematic analysis of legal marriage and health to compare, gay, lesbian, and heterosexual couples. The major goal of the proposed project is to assess how married men and women promote or deter one another's health, and how these processes vary across gay, lesbian, and heterosexual marriages. The primary focus of this project is on revealing the pathways and processes through which gay, lesbian, and heterosexual spouses influence each other's health, therefore we will collect new data and use an analytic approach that is uniquely suited to addressing issues of process. The R21 period will be used to construct a novel three-part mixed-methods dataset. We will conduct face-to-face 60- minute baseline surveys with open and closed-ended responses, and collect 14 days of daily process data from both spouses in 60 gay marriages, 60 lesbian marriages, and 60 heterosexual marriages (N=360 individuals, 180 couples, 5,040 diary days). Daily process (also known as diary) data are uniquely suited to investigating psychosocial processes that unfold in daily interactions with spouses, while also accounting for the contexts of those interactions. The diary data obtained from both spouses in each marriage will be analyzed in tandem to assess daily fluctuation in spousal dynamics and health outcomes (i.e., health behaviors, psychological state, and physical health symptoms) as well as mechanisms (e.g., stress, social support) that link spousal dynamics to health outcomes. Open-ended questions from the baseline survey and previously collected in-depth interview data will also provide qualitative data to analyze meanings and processes that explain and elucidate significant patterns revealed in the daily process analysis. This mixed methods project will inform health policy involving the gendered dynamics through which marriage influences health across couple type. We must identify areas of greatest risk and resilience for men and women in gay, lesbian, and heterosexual marriage to ground the most effective strategies for policy and practice. The purpose of the R21 mechanism is to support preliminary and novel projects that subsequently lead to larger-scale studies. We will utilize findings from the proposed project to ground the development of a future R01 application to create a national dataset on marriage and health in gay, lesbian, and heterosexual populations.