Davillas, A. and Pudney, S.E. (2017) Concordance of health states in couples: Analysis of self-reported, nurse administered and blood-based biomarker data in the UK Understanding Society panel. Journal of Health Economics, 56. pp. 87-102. ISSN 0167-6296
Abstract
We use self-reported health measures, nurse-administered measurements and blood-based biomarkers to examine the concordance between health states of partners in marital/cohabiting relationships in the UK. A model of cumulative health exposures is used to interpret the empirical pattern of betweenpartner health correlation in relation to elapsed relationship duration, allowing us to distinguish non-causal correlation due to assortative mating from potentially causal effects of shared lifestyle and environmental factors. We find important differences between the results for different health indicators, with strongest homogamy correlations observed for adiposity, followed by blood pressure, heart rate, inflammatory markers and cholesterol, and also self-assessed general health and functional difficulties. We find no evidence of a “dose-response relationship” for marriage duration, and show that this suggests – perhaps counterintuitively – that shared lifestyle factors and homogamous partner selection make roughly equal contributions to the concordance we observe in most of the health measures we examine.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Biomarkers; Health; Homogamy; Spousal concordance; Understanding Society |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ES/M008592/1 ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ES/K005146/1 ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ES/L009153/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Sep 2017 13:24 |
Last Modified: | 13 Nov 2017 11:31 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2017.09.010 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2017.09.010 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:121502 |