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This research summary illustrates validates several important
premises in this Web site. See my comments after the article. The links and hilights below
are mine.
Nearly 2
million people in the United States and many more in the world are impacted
by divorce each year. There have been a variety of studies that have hinted
that divorce may be linked to the increased chance of an
early death, but overall the
evidence has been mixed.
David Sbarra, Rita Law, and Robert Portley from the
University of Arizona recently published a study to summarize the evidence
on the link between divorce and early death. They gathered data from 32
studies involving more than 6.5 million people in 11 countries that included
755,000 divorces and 160,000 deaths.
In general, the researchers found that
adults who were divorced were 23%
more likely to die younger than their married counterparts. Men had
almost twice as high a risk of early death compared to women. People younger
than 65 years of age were more at risk following divorce than older people.
This pattern was consistent regardless of what country people lived in.
The next question asked by the researchers was whether
divorce "caused" death. Now this may seem obvious, but even with prospective
data, it is not always the case that correlation mean causation.
One
important consideration is a selection effect that accounts for both
divorce and death. The authors write, "social selection holds that
some people possess characteristics that increase risk for both
separation/divorce and poor health outcomes.
Hostility, depression and
substance abuse are just a few examples of the many processes that
can increase the likelihood of future divorce...and are unique
predictors of early death..."
In other
words, some common characteristic is causing both divorce and death. These
data do not allow us to test the selection hypothesis and therefore, we
cannot rule out this selection effect.
The authors conclude their study with a thoughtful analysis
of the mechanisms through which divorce might lead to early death. Their
first idea is that because divorce often reduces the financial status of
both husbands and wives, this may impact health.
In general,
we know that individuals with lower economic means are more at-risk of
health problems. Another consequence of divorce is that people's social ties
are disrupted. Divorced men and women are less likely to maintain ties to
neighbors, churches, clubs and so forth. Again we know that strong social
relationships benefit health and wellbeing.
Another possible way in which divorce influences well-being
is through health habits. There is some strong evidence that following
divorce, women in particular are more likely to resume smoking. There is
some evidence to suggest that eating habits and sleeping patterns are also
disrupted.
Finally, there is the possibility that the stress of divorce
disrupts biological functions which puts people more at risk. In a previous
study, Sbarra demonstrated that divorced people who reported more difficulty
handling their emotions following divorce had higher blood pressure. This
finding suggests that stress-related difficulties brought on by divorce may
contribute to poorer health.
Despite the general finding that divorce increases the risk
of early death, the authors urge caution in the interpretation of these
findings. They note that many people
remarry and this was not taken into account in this study.
They also
suggest that until more work is done that controls for selection factors and
includes the various mechanisms, it
would be unwise to base too much on the findings of this one study.
Although the findings from this study remain open to further exploration,
the analysis by these authors is a welcome reminder of the complexities of
understanding the effects of divorce.
Comments
Despite the author's caution against doing so, casual readers of this
article risk wrongly concluding "divorce promotes early death," which can
raise their anxiety. The important news here is in the boxed text above,
which acknowledges that some (unknown) factors predispose both
divorce and early death
My professional research since 1979 suggests that this is true. I propose
that the "selection factors" promoting divorce, major health problems, and
early death are (1)
inherited
psychological
wounds
from early-childhood
trauma
, plus (2) ignorance of
these topics,
and (3) unawareness of these two factors and their effects.
This useful
report illustrates the common research dynamic of focusing on only one
aspect (variable) of a complex social process instead of the whole
multi-variable process. This is like studying why certain flowers don't
thrive instead of looking at the health of the whole garden. In this case,
"the whole (unresearched) garden" is the toxic personal and societal effects
of public indifference to irresponsible child conception + ineffective or
toxic parenting.
- Peter K. Gerlach, MSW
For more perspective, see...
this UCLA
research report on how family environment affects children's health and
welfare,
this
research summary suggesting
a link between "mental illness" and early death.
these other research summaries and comments related to Lesson 1
(psychological wounding and healing) in this nonprofit Web site
The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/relate/news/divorce_die.htm
Comments