How Spouses Influence Each Other's Health in Same- and Different-Sex Marriages: A Dyadic and Longitudinal Assessment from Mid to Later Life

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Abstract Decades of population research show that married Americans are in better health and live longer than their unmarried peers and that there are gender differences in how spouses influence each other’s health. The Parent project has moved us beyond work on health in different-sex marriages between women and men to look at the dyadic relational and health experiences of mid to later life spouses in same-sex (primarily gay and lesbian-identified) and different-sex (primarily straight-identified) marriages. The Parent project has fundamentally shifted thinking about marriage and health towards a focus on how gendered relational contexts influence marriage and health outcomes for same- and different-sex couples primarily made up of gay, lesbian, and straight people. A significant gap in the literature, currently not addressed in the parent study to date, is the inclusion of a substantial portion of bisexual+ identified individuals. Bisexual+ identified people, who consists of anyone who is of a non-monosexual sexual identity, such as bisexual, pansexual, queer, demisexual- identified (NIH NOSI), make up between 40 and 50 percent of the overall LGBTQ population and are the fastest growing sexual minority group in the U.S. today. The proposed Supplement will lay the foundation for an investigation of the causes of the bisexual+ health disadvantage in the marital context, which remains a puzzle for scientists and policymakers. To incorporate a sample of bisexual+ people into the Parent project, we must first do an exploratory set of in-depth interviews with 30 bisexual+ people and their spouses (of any sexuality). The original R21 project, which grounded the Parent R37, relied on in-depth interviews with gay, lesbian, and straight-identified spouses as a first step to gaining keen insight into the marital processes of different gender and sexuality groups. Thus, with the goal of including a bisexual+ panel in the Parent project, this supplement proposes 60 qualitative interviews, inclusive of 30 bisexual+ people and their spouses, to inform best practices on recruiting bisexual+ people and their spouses and to provide novel preliminary data for contextu- alizing existing Parent project data and for grounding a larger survey and daily diary study to be added in a future year of the Parent study. Qualitative data shed light on the underlying processes through which such patterns emerge and can then be used to develop and refine measures for future quantitative assessments in bisexual+ populations. We propose the following specific aims: Aim 1: Show feasibility of and a specific scientific approach for recruiting bisexual+ people and their spouses. Aim 2: Conduct 60 in-depth interviews with bisexual+ (e.g., bisexual, pansexual) people and their spouses (of any sexuality) to understand health in a bisexual+ marriage. This will demonstrate the scientific importance and novelty of the inclusion of bisexual+ people and their spouses with the goal of providing needed context to the Parent project survey responses and of developing appropriate survey questions for the Parent project.