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Spouses' Individual and Shared Cumulative Risk: Implications for Functional Health and Longevity in Older Adulthood.
Shannon T Mejia1, Tai-Te Su2, Jacqui Smith3
1Department of Health and Kinesiology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine
|May 8, 2025
Summary
Spouses accumulate shared biological risk, impacting functional limitations and mortality. This shared risk modifies individual health impacts, highlighting the importance of a couple's health context.
Area of Science:
- Gerontology
- Public Health
- Biomedical Science
Background:
- Multisystem biological risk reflects physiological dysregulation from chronic stress.
- Spousal health concordance suggests shared accumulation of health risks within couples.
- This study investigates shared biological risk in couples as a predictor of health outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine spouses' shared multisystem biological risk.
- To assess shared risk as a modifier of individual health risks.
- To determine the predictive value of shared risk for functional limitations and mortality.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from 3,856 heterosexual couples from the Health and Retirement Study (2008/2010 waves).
- Constructed individual and shared frailty, cardiometabolic, and total risk indices.
- Employed multilevel regressions to predict functional limitations and survival at 2016/2018.
Main Results:
- Couples' cumulative shared frailty, cardiometabolic, and total risk were associated with functional limitations and survival.
- Shared cardiometabolic and total risks attenuated the impact of individual risks.
- Models incorporating shared risk demonstrated greater predictive power than individual risk models.
Conclusions:
- The physiological cost of adaptation is co-constructed and shared between spouses.
- Shared health context between spouses plays a critical role in health trajectories.
- Interventions should consider the couple as a unit for health management.
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