Grief or Relief? Dyadic loneliness and biological health after mid-to-late life widowhood

Loneliness is a serious public health issue among the aging population, yet it is not merely an individual but also a relational experience. Indeed, research has shown that having a lonely partner is a "stress generator" with implications for individuals' own biopsychosocial health. Further, widowhood is a stressful and harmful experience in mid and later life, yet no research to date has examined whether the removal of chronic stress posed by a lonely partner via widowhood may be associated with improved biological health following loss. Using blood-based biomarker data from 13,205 continuously partnered and 343 recently widowed adults across two waves of data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE; 2013-2015), we examine whether a dyadic partner's loneliness pre-loss is associated with three biological markers of health as well as self-rated health among recent widow(er)s post-loss; whether this differs in comparison with continuously partnered persons over the same timeframe; and whether associations varied by age. Results indicated that (a) deceased dyadic partner's pre-loss loneliness was associated with lower (i.e., healthier) post-loss levels of Cystatin C, a marker of kidney function, among the recently widowed; (b) deceased dyadic partner's pre-loss loneliness was associated with lower (i.e., healthier) post-loss triglyceride levels, a marker of cardiovascular health, but with poorer self-rated health among recent widow(er)s in midlife, yet these effects were attenuated with age; and (c) deceased dyadic partner's pre-loss loneliness was not associated with post-loss levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation. Interaction terms indicated that these effects were unique to the recently widowed, and did not apply to the continuously partnered. Overall, findings cohere with dyadic biopsychosocial approaches to health, as well as with a role histories approach to studying life transitions. We discuss implications for theory and future research.