Couples health states and future health-related outcomes
This project had three aims: 1) To use the full range of health measures and biomarkers available at the Waves 2 and 3 baseline together with other observable characteristics to identify concordant and discordant couples. Use of standard biomarkers and information that would be available in GP records will align the research with policy requirements. (2) To investigate how future outcomes (health, disability, health-related behaviours, mental health, etc.) differ between couples with concordant and discordant baseline health states. (3) To investigate whether the relationship quality and the risk of partnership dissolution is related to concordant or discordant health states.
Prevention and early detection have an important role to play in improving health and reducing health inequalities across the population, but research in this area has mainly focused on individual risks and behaviour, rather than influences at the household level. Some exceptions in the research literature have shown concordance of health states between couples and a causal effect of shared lifestyle and environmental influences. This fellowship extended this strand of research by focusing on the couple as a key unit, and investigating the consequences for future health-related outcomes of the degree of health concordance at baseline. The outcomes considered included physical and mental health and disability. The research used the full range of UKHLS biomarkers and other observable characteristics to construct measures of the two partners’ health states at baseline, using them to identify couples with concordant and discordant baseline health states and compare their future health-related outcomes. The availability of biomarkers and anthropometric measures within a longitudinal household survey provided a unique opportunity to investigate the contribution of the family context to persistent health inequalities. The research has potential to inform policy. In some deprived areas, mortality from some diseases is high relative to recorded prevalence, suggesting a failure of the primary health care system to diagnose health problems. It may be possible to improve early detection or prevention by designing within-family interventions – for example, using the health of one partner to identify risks for the other.
